VIRGINIA BEACH
Yoder Dairies delivered milk to Karen Crain and her family for 19 years.
Crain stopped the service in September, with her children away at college and less need for the regular supply. When she learned Monday that the nearly 80-year-old dairy and delivery operation would soon close, the Virginia Beach resident rushed to the Yoder store on Princess Anne Road to stock up on chocolate milk.
"I'm not waiting. We need chocolate milk. We have it every Christmas," said Crain, arms loaded with one plastic gallon and two half-gallon glass bottles that she'll serve for the holidays and heat up for cocoa.
She lamented Yoder's demise: "This is another thing that's gone away that's been around forever."
Yoder, a Hampton Roads institution that has home-delivered glass bottles of milk and other dairy products since 1929, will leave the last orders at customers' doorsteps Friday. Across Hampton Roads, Yoder fans swore by the supremacy of its butter, eggnog and cream-line milk. They embraced the convenience and tradition of home delivery in old-fashioned glass bottles from a local dairy.
The dairy will finish its last bottling run this week to fulfill final orders. It has left letters with customers to let them know that it will pick up final payments and empty bottles next week.
Since January, as the nation's economic problems escalated, Yoder has lost 800 to 1,000 customers - about a quarter of the 3,800 homes on its delivery list, said Maria Olah, the dairy's general manager. As gas and food prices rose and families looked to cut costs, home-delivered milk was among the things they eliminated.
"We're an extra," said Olah, whose parents bought Yoder in 1996. "We're a nicety, I call it. We're not a necessity."
The lost sales made it increasingly difficult to keep the business running, she said. The company, which has about 35 employees, saw its revenue decline to the point that it could no longer pay to buy, process and transport milk.
"We don't want to discontinue, but we can't afford it anymore," Olah said. "You have to say enough's enough."
Yoder is the last of the region's family-owned dairies to shut down. Bergey's Dairy Farm, a 72-year-old operation based in Chesapeake that was faced with a wave of debts, sold its cows and stopped processing milk in 2005.
Yoder's Princess Anne Road store will remain open until its inventory is sold, probably by next week, Olah said. The company is considering keeping open its ice cream shop at the Virginia Beach Farmers Market, which it runs as a separate entity.
That gives a glimmer of hope to customers such as Jerry Harrison, who picked up four half-gallons of ice cream and a container of eggnog at the store on Monday. Harrison praised Yoder's natural ingredients and minimal preservatives. "And this is a very creamy ice cream," he added. "It's going to be missed tremendously."
Stores that have sold Yoder products, including The Fresh Market in Virginia Beach and Five Points Community Farm Market in Norfolk, won't receive any more shipments when they sell out, Olah said.
Five Points scooped up 249 half-gallons of Yoder ice cream as the last of its stock, said Bev Sell, general manager of the farm market, which has sold Yoder products since 2003. "It's a quality product and it's local," she said
The farm market's advocates have strived to convince consumers that they will lose local farms and other local producers if they fail to support them. "Maybe this is the wake-up call," Sell said.
Brothers Eli and Elmer Yoder, two Amish dairy farmers in Kempsville, started Yoder Dairies in 1929. It remained at least partially owned by their family until 1996, when Ken and Elsie Miller bought the operation from a group of stockholders, including some of the founders' descendants and other local dairy producers.
Before the Millers took over, Yoder began buying raw milk from a dairy farm cooperative based in Farmville. The dairy processes, pasteurizes and bottles the milk and other products.
In late 2006, the Millers shut down the old dairy building on Princess Anne Road and built a new facility that houses the processing plant and store. They expected to keep expanding the delivery operation, which had more than 5,000 customers at its peak in 2003, Olah said.
The Millers had formed a separate entity, K&E LLC, that owned the real estate. As the dairy's revenue thinned, Olah said, it had trouble paying its rent to K&E, which in turn struggled with mortgage payments and filed for bankruptcy in June. The Millers filed for personal bankruptcy a month earlier.
"Yoder's is kind of a heritage," said Joan Oglethorpe, who moved to Norfolk with her husband in 1950 and raised four daughters on Yoder's home-delivered milk. She now stops regularly at the store and was saddened to find Monday that it had sold the last of her beloved butter. "It's hard for me to think of them going out."
Carolyn Shapiro, (757) 446-2270, carolyn.shapiro@pilotonline.com
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What a sad day!
For as long as I can remember, there has always been a milkbox sitting on my porch. One Friday morning when I happened to look out of the window, there was one of my neighborhood friends running down the street with a half gallon of OUR milk. (I guess he wished his parents ordered through Yoder.)
After I moved out of my parents' house, I continued to order through Yoder Dairies. After 40+ years, it's really hard to say "good-bye." It's sad to know that my own kids will not be able to enjoy the freshness/purities of Yoder milk for the rest of their teenage years. I know that if they had the opportunity to continue the "tradition," they surely would.
Thanks, Joey for being such a great milkman!
LBM
P.S. To the idiot who thinks that this isn't a big deal; you obviously didn't grow up here, and you have no clue about the history of our city and the meaning of community.
Sad to see you close
Thank you Yoder's for delivering to our home the past 20 years. We will miss you dearly. Thank you Thurman for ringing our doorbell as per our request to remind us that our milk is on the porch. We truly will miss you and the entire staff. We just wish this day never came. Thank you again!
A Sad Goodbye to Yoder Dairies
The last bottle of milk
On my doorstep,
The feeling of silk,
A memory I've kept.
From childhood to now,
I've grown with the "Dairies",
My head I now bow,
No longer will the milk be merry.
From eggnog to ice cream,
The tastes I have tried,
Perfection each seems,
My taste buds now cry.
Rickety trucks,
and glass bottles too,
Locally owned,
Moo Boo Hoo.
-Anonymous Yoder Dairy Lovers in an AP Human Geography Class at First Colonial High School in Room 107, around 9:34 AM.
I cried. This is a terrible
I cried. This is a terrible day for our town.With the exception of 4 years in college all I have ever known has been Yoders. This is a terrible day for our town.
The Amish farmers who made up Yoders over the years have been a backbone to our community. There was a brief feature on National Public Radio a few years back about a good deed that community did many years ago. If you have 60 seconds, it is certainly worth a listen.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=937158
Yoder, we will miss you!
the last delivery
We received our last delivery this morning along with "The Letter." We were newer customers, starting just this past fall. Indeed it was good. It is a shame that in this society of organic, all natural, free range, hormone free... that we are loosing the only local connection to healthy dairy.
Thank you Nathan, our milkman and all of the other Yoder employees. May the Lord sustain your every need and may He provide a wonderful next job for you. We are leaving our milkbox outside for awhile longer, good memories.
sorry i will miss all of my customers
thank you all for being there for us i will miss of of my customers the one who just had babys and the ones who just come in for ice cream and who wants to talk i will miss all of you so please for thinking about us this is the end of a every good pleace to go and be a family thank you terri
From a Yoder Employee
All I can say that this happened with great regret from all people involved with the decision. I am not going to blame this closing on just the economy, there were many factors. And we did ask customers for help with getting more customers. We tried to go to plastic to help keep pricing down. All the employees of Yoder's are very sad today. We all shed a tear today. We took in all the stories of long time customers, we took in all the WHY's and the WHAT IF's. If we had the support of the community all year long the way we did today we would be looking at a diffrent picture. We can all look back and be happy to be a part of something great. I know that I have worked with the best group of people and each one had a part in keeping the business alive as long as has been. We will all miss the rickety trucks and the milk at our doorstep. The store at Princess Anne will continue to serve Ice Cream asmost of the milk product is already sold out. Thank you if you were a customer and you missed out if you weren't.
This may not help but..
Kroger sells bottled milk from Homestead Creamery, a dairy outside of Roanoake. The milk products that I buy are very good, especially the chocolate milk. For a while, that was the only type of milk my kids would drink. It's fresh and good. Give it a try when the Yoder's supply runs out!!
Hmm...
We can just have milk processed in china and imported to the US. Way to go big business, one more way to suppress our economy!
VB Farmers Market Yoder's store no closing!
Just to let everyone know, Yoder's store located at the Virginia Beach Farmers Market is not closing. You can still get your Ice Cream and more at this locations. Visit the store at 3640 Dam Neck Road, Virginia Beach, VA 23453. Please be patient with them as they make necessary changes to continue providing the great ice cream, milk, and baked goods.
Good Lord People...
It's just milk. If their business model was solid this wouldn't be an issue. The world won't end when mom and pop business' close. Delivering milk door to door these days is just bad business.
The Long Kiss Goodnight
The long kiss goodnight will assuredly be bitter. I remember when I first moved to VA Beach and was working a vending route, starting everyday before the sun rose. During many of those days, I would be about within the City and would see what seemed like one lonesome, old step-side truck making deliveries. That truck, sometimes seen in the later parts of the day and into the dark evening was always hustlin' from one place to the next.
Then one day I tried their stuff and was hooked. I will miss the wonderful milk and beat-up, old step-side truck on the road. I hope the company can be revived one day.
Tax money already spent....
I voted for McCain, but I also was not asked or given a choice where the money to increase assets of people that have made bad choices and yet, do not endanger their lifestyle or income. Yet, my tax dollars are some of in billions of dollars that went to providing this bailout.
It is situtions just as these, closing of a good business(jobs created long before George and the boys) that could keep people employed, that is my concern not just ice cream,milk or Bankers. Where are the Yoder people going to be employed? I guess while I am waiting on my bailout or atleast stock from the Bank, I'll be paying for another bailout,called unemployment..... see how the money (wealth)has already been spread.
Good grief, Curtis! Your
Good grief, Curtis! Your obsession with Obama is positively unhealthy!
Anyway, on topic, I tried to get Yoder's to deliver out my way when we first moved to HR. I have wonderful memories of home delivered milk as a child...our dairy used horse drawn vehicles, believe it or not!! (And, this was only back in the 1960s!)
My mother used to get mad if we didn't shake the bottle to disperse the cream throughout....of course, our goal was to get as much cream in the glass as we could, so we didn't shake it unless she was watching!!
Save Yoder's Dairy
I don't have an answer but maybe together we Yoder lovers can figure it out....if I had known I would have been enlisting others to try to increase customers, sent emails...maybe our advertising community could have helped w/marketing. Unless people know there is a problem, it's hard to help...how much money is needed...could we buy shares...together maybe we can save Yoder's....ideas????
My family from AZ looks forward as part of their visist each summer to drinking Yoder's milk...this last summer the two teenagers(with a little help from the adults) drank 18 bottles of milk!!!!they were going for 20!
We know that once Yoder's is gone a piece of Hampton Roads' Americana is lost forever......
SAVE YODER'S!!!
Yoders
My earliest childhood memories were discovering the water ring marks on our wooden front porch from where Yoders had delievered the milk. I was born in Hilton Village (now Newport News) in 1932 and I remember the cream freezing and poping up the cap; I remember birds pecking thru the cap to get to the milk. Some of the Yoder family were my friends in High School and in later life I returned to the barn theater at the sight of the old dairy farm. Soon after moving back to Norfolk in 1985, I began ordering milk products to my doorstep from Yoders. Today I got my last delivery. I will miss you friendly folks. Thank you for being a part of the wonderful joys of my life. Skip
save yoder daries!
Shame we can't save them by driving up the delivery subscriptions the 25% it went down. I was just about to sign up because now I have kids and they like whole milk. If they go, they will be missed.
Wonderful memories
Yoder delivered milk to our house in the late 1930's and 1940's. I'd no idea that they still deliver! My mind's eye still pictures those glass bottles filled to the brim with that layer of cream on top. Dad would scoop a spoon or two into his morning coffee. We'd shake the bottle vigorously to mix the cream and milk. Sometimes on a cold morning when the cream would freeze and push up the paper cap, we'd step out the door to find our cat licking at her "ice cream."
Yoder's Dairy Closing
I am was very,very,very upset when my cousin sent this article to me this morning. I am from Baltimore, MD & my family would make several trips in December for eggnog. We 1st purchased eggnog from Bergey's every year from Thanksgiving thru the end of the year. My sister & I would buy at least 10 crates of eggnog for family and friends back in Baltimore. Friends always asked if we were making "eggnog runs" for the holidays. We were quite upset when Bergey's closed back in I think 2005; but then other family members told us about Yoder's; the tradional
"eggnog runs" continuded. Once the staff realized the amount of eggnog we'd purchase they would allow us to call in advance to place our order & not leave their shelves bare once we left. In these trying times people just want some comfort food & traditions & not being able to get fresh quality eggnog will definitley be missed. My neices were just in Chesapeake the end of November & brought back 2 crates, not nearly enough to sustain the holidays. I have 1 glass left; the holidays will not be the same without eggnog from Va.
Gone are the days of the milk truck
Another piece of American gone who's next.
Someone said "George and the boy's uptown think this way" Well it's better I guess to fold up and leave before Obama get into office and run things as a good socialist and start taken control of businesses and tax them to death (who by the way create jobs not the president). If you think George was bad just wait until the Clintons and Obama gets into office, once things are settled you're see the true colors of a liberal in power.