Bobolink Dairy & Bakehouse
Bobolink Dairy & Bakehouse is a regenerative & sustainable, 100% grass-fed family farm. We create foods that nourish people in harmony with nature. Good, wholesome, nutritious food is a passion for us, and creating good food in a sustainable manner, while healing the earth, is our life’s mission.
We make our products using methods that resemble how things were done over 200 years ago, melding old and new to usher us into a healthy and vibrant future while healing the missteps of the more recent past.
We make and market 100% grass-fed raw cow’s milk cheeses, April through November. We use native cultures and long fermentation to allow the milk to realize its full flavor potential, and each batch is a reflection of the unique qualities of the day it was made.
Our cows are mixed breed, and multi-purpose. Last season, we milked 70 cows, and we have a bumper crop of young heifers and bulls of our breed, the Bobolink Grazers, which are the result of crossing several common "modern" dairy breeds (Ayrshire, Guernsey, Jersey, etc.) with the ancient Kerry cattle of Ireland.
You will find Bobolink Dairy & Bakehouse every Sunday at Hunterdon Community Farmers Market!
About Us
Founders Jonathan and Nina White are pioneers of modern-day, 100% grass-fed, farmstead cheeses in the United States. When they founded Bobolink Dairy & Bakehouse on leased land in 2002, the purpose was to prove that it was possible to make small-scale regenerative farming a viable and vibrant option for landowners in the northeast.
At that time, many landowners were breaking up their properties in order to build tract housing, or using the land for subsidy farming which was damaging the local environment and taking value away from the immediate community.
When the couple purchased the current location in 2010, the fields had been in a conventional crop rotation for many years. The land was a barren eroded landscape of corn stubble and parched earth. The road past the farm was often closed due to flooding during heavy rainfall.
Within a year of replanting the pasture, the flooding and erosion subsided, and the organic matter and microbial flora began to return. Indeed, a Rutgers University study of the microbiome and fertility of our pastures charted the doubling of soil organic matter in just ten years.
This is a true and relevant tale of regeneration, part of the important work our world faces as we seek to use well-managed animal husbandry to sequester carbon and reverse global warming
