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Fresh on wheels: Holy Cow Delivery brings homegrown goods to the door
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By M.K. Luther - mkluther@nvdaily.com
LEBANON CHURCH -- While most families look forward to a relaxing weekend by the time Saturday rolls around, Tim and Samantha Stern spend their Saturdays rising early to load up a van and spend the day winding through the Shenandoah Valley, delivering milk and homegrown food right to people's doorsteps.
The Sterns, both Frederick County natives and Virginia Tech graduates, decided to use their agricultural backgrounds to provide today's busy, working families with farm fresh, locally grown and produced products. And, as working parents of two young children, the Sterns recognized the need for families to have easier access to those kinds of food.
"It is not fun to take your kids to the grocery store -- they want to put everything in the cart," Mrs. Stern explained as her small staff -- sons Carson, 1, and Braden, 4, dashed about the farmette gathering eggs for delivery.
Stern, the arborist for the city of Winchester, and his wife, an agriculture teacher at James Wood Middle School, started Holy Cow Delivery, based from their farmette in Lebanon Church, in October. Holy Cow supplies free-range eggs, lamb, goat and homemade apple butter from the Sterns' farmette, as well as local breads and honeys from vendors, and the Mt. Jackson-based Route 11 chips.
"We are trying to help people in this area promote their agriculture products, and then we provide the delivery part," Mrs. Stern said.
Mrs. Stern enlisted the help of her mother and father, Debbie and Sam Fauble, and grandmother Mary Richard, owner and operator of Richard's Fruit Market in Middletown, and her cousins, owners of South Mountain Creamery in Middletown, Md., when she and her husband decided to take the leap and start their own business.
"My dad's side has the dairy and my mom's side has the produce with Richard's Fruit Market, so I live in the best of both worlds with access to everything," she said.
The pasture-raised meat is free of hormones and antibiotics, she said, so Holy Cow Delivery gives families natural alternatives to store-bought products as well as the convenience of home delivery.
"I think people are really beginning to care about their food -- they want to know where it comes from and they like homegrown," she said.
"It is a little more expensive but it is comparable to organic at the grocery store -- and they don't mind paying a little more for it because they know where it comes from."
The home deliveries also remind people of the all-but-forgotten-time of milkmen and local grocers who would become a fixture in a family's weekly routine, according to the family.
"It is like you are family when you communicate with them every week," Mrs. Stern said.
All of the creamery milk is delivered in glass bottles that are both nostalgic and eco-friendly, the Sterns said. The bottles are all picked up, returned to the Maryland creamery for sterilization and then reused.
"Most people remember the days when they were kids and had milk delivered to their home," Mrs. Stern said. "The glass bottles are wonderful -- people love it in the glass bottles -- it makes [the milk] a little heavier but it makes it taste fresher and it stays colder in glass bottles."
The Sterns made their first delivery in a refurbished step van, painted with the signature black and white spots of a dairy cow, in November, and have grown from five delivery customers to 25 standing customers, with as many as 41 rotating customers total.
Currently, the standard Holy Cow delivery route runs from Mountain Falls, Front Royal and Winchester, but the Sterns want to grow the business and can make deliveries throughout the area, Mrs. Stern said. The Sterns also make the products available at the Freight Station Farmers Market in Winchester.
Mrs. Stern, whose love of showing sheep earned her the nickname "sheep gal" in high school, also credits her active participation in 4-H and FFA with giving her the essential tools to run her own business.
"It all kind of meshes together -- I have the background to do this," she said.
For now, the Sterns have updated the products by adding fresh-squeezed orange and grapefruit juice from a small, Florida-based grower and would like to continue to increase produce selection to give people everything a farm market does, only delivered.
"Right now, It is like a fruit market on wheels," Mrs. Stern said. "Because fruit markets are only seasonal and they close every November, but we have all the things fruit markets have, but we will offer them all year round."
She also said she would eventually like to include milk's time-honored companion to the Holy Cow product.
"When I think of milk, I think of chocolate chip cookies," Mrs. Stern said.
For more information, visit www.HolyCowDelivery.com.
Holy Cow products and prices
Delivery fee: $3.75
Milk:
Whole, Chocolate, 2 percent and Skim -- $4 for half gallon
Half and Half -- $4 for quart
Buttermilk -- $2.75 for quart
Yogurt:
Assorted flavors -- $1.50 for 6 ounces
Yogurt drinks:
Assorted flavors -- $4 for one quart
Meat and Eggs:
Sausage -- $4 for one pound
Hamburger -- $4 for one pound
Leg of Lamb Roasts -- $10 for one pound
Lamb chops -- $10 for one pound
Eggs -- $3.50 for one dozen
Apples:
Assorted varieties: $6 for half peck
Butter:
Salted or unsalted-- $6 for one pound
Honey -- $3.50 for one pound
Cream cheese:
Whipped plain: $6.50 for 16 ounces
Assorted flavors: $4 for 8 ounces
Jams:
Assorted varieties -- $5-$6 for one pint
Apple Butter -- $8 for one quart
Local honey -- $6.50 for one pound
Breads:
Cinnamon Raisin Walnut -- $6 per loaf
Grains Galore -- $5.50 per loaf
Honey Wheat -- $4.75 per loaf
Montana White -- $4.25 per loaf
Orange Cranberry Pecan -- $6 per loaf
Route 11 chips:
Regular -- $2.75 for 6-ounce bag
Sweet potato and cinnamon -- $3.50 for 5-ounce bag
Specialty items:
Sparkling Cider -- $6.95 for 25.4 ounces
Orchid Island Grapefruit or orange juice -- $5.85 for half gallon
Sweet tea -- $2.75 for half gallon
For a complete listing of products and prices go online to
www.HolyCowDelivery.com.
-- Source: Holy Cow Delivery
