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Judge's passion for farming began in high school, when he'd work weekends helping a local dairy farmer in his hometown of Marshfield, Mass. From there he took odd jobs working in heavy construction, before landing a position as a consultant with the Franklin County Regional Planning Agency. While at the agency, Judge conducted a study on ways to protect farmland and forests. For the first time he saw how removed the dairy farmers had become from their market. It was a realization he never forgot.
In November 1988, sick of viewing farming from the sidelines, Judge and his wife, Wendy, sold their house in Ashfield, Mass., and with the proceeds bought a 300-acre dairy farm in the hills of Vermont. At the time it seemed like a smart investment. Judge planned to use a system of rotational grazing that would vastly reduce his feed costs -- by almost 60%. In addition, the price he'd paid for the farm seemed like a steal. Unfortunately, Judge miscalculated on both counts. The grazing system failed, and the farm required unexpected, hefty up-front investments. The Judges quickly found themselves struggling just to survive. After the first few years, they were more than $150,000 in debt. Searching for new sources of funds, Judge took out a second mortgage on his home, sold the development rights for his land, and hunted for ways to increase his farm's efficiency. "I was running out of tricks," he says.
And prospects for better times were looking grim. "We were talking about selling the cows," admits Wendy Judge. But then Steven Judge heard news that made him too angry to quit. Between 1989 and 1990, word started spreading about bovine growth hormones, synthetic hormones that, when injected into a cow, reportedly would increase that cow's milk production by 10%.
While groups like the National Dairy Promotion and Research Board, in Arlington, Va., promoted the breakthrough, they did warn farmers like Judge that the public would at first be skeptical of hormone use. "They told us to expect consumption to drop 10% to 15% for three years but then pick up," recounts Judge, still horrified by the notion. This was it. Small farmers like Judge couldn't take a 15% drop in demand. Moreover, many of the small farmers were as skeptical about the hormones as consumers were.
The episode gave Judge an idea: "The 10% to 15% that would reject hormone milk was the 10% to 15% that would buy a premium-quality milk." What if he zeroed in on the consumer's sensitivity about milk and came to market with a better-tasting, fresher brand of milk?
"It was a chance to save my own farm and others like me," reasons Judge. Banding together with other small farmers, Judge penciled the plans for a marketing firm that would operate almost like a shell company, passing all profits on to the individual farmers. In theory, the plan driving VMP is undeniably simple. The company charges a higher price for a better-tasting milk. The price guarantees that VMP can pay both the processors and the grocery stores a tad more to handle its milk while still holding to its ultimate aim of paying the farmer a fair, economically viable price.
As simple as it sounded, Judge still lacked some cold, hard facts. Unfortunately, when he sat down with a market researcher, Judge also realized he lacked cold, hard cash. "I couldn't afford the cost of original research," he confesses. So instead, the researcher dug through statistics kept by the National Dairy Promotion and Research Board. The news was good. Consumers' concern about the freshness, quality, and nutrition of beverages was on the rise. Witness the popularity of premium juices, bottled water, and gourmet coffees -- all of which were once commodities, like milk. Consumption of bottled water, perhaps the greatest commodity of them all, grew 173% from 1979 to 1989. Judge was convinced that milk could be part of that premium beverage growth.
To recruit his partners, Judge sent a series of three mailings in the spring of 1990 to a list he'd gathered from registered cattle clubs. He figured the farmers that went to the trouble of registering their cows probably were more quality oriented and were better candidates for VMP. The response was overwhelming: 25% replied with interest.
To farmers like 29-year-old Joe Hescock, VMP offered a chance to farm the way he'd like. "I like to produce the best possible milk, but on $12.50 per hundredweight, it's real hard," he says. "I'm looking forward to answering real consumer needs and being paid for it." Wilfred Lamoureux, one of VMP's largest farmer investors and a farmer for 35 years, puts the choice a little more starkly. "Without the hope of this, my farm would be for sale."
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According to Judge, VFF milk will taste better simply because it will be held to stricter quality standards than generic milk. Two measurements will be key: somatic-cell count, which reflects the cow's health, and preliminary-incubation (PI) count, which reflects bacteria in the milk. For somatic-cell count, the government asks that milk headed for grocery shelves keep to a maximum of 750,000 per milliliter; VMP will hold its milk's count to a maximum of 300,000. As for PI count, VMP will go no higher than 50,000 per milliliter, while generic milk tries to keep to a maximum of 100,000. VMP will also increase the fat content of its milk by .25% -- not a lot, but enough to boost the flavor and consistency. At the farm level, VMP plans to hire a milk taster, who, like a wine taster, will discern the subtleties of milk flavor. And on the shelf, Judge will stick with a cardboard half-gallon container to combat the off-flavors created by the fluorescent lights hitting the milk in see-through plastic containers. Although Judge plans to branch out into lower-fat milks later, for VFF's entrÉe into the dairy case he's sticking with whole milk, which is the biggest single seller, at 45% of all milk sold.
