Springfield Creamery
From Lane Co Oregon
The year 1911 was the first listing in a city directory of a commercial creamery, which was called the Springfield Creamery, Inc. (Polk 1911). It produced cheese and ice cream. It built a new cheese factory in 1941. In the 1980s it moved to Eugene where is produces Nancy Yogurt that is sold in over 33 states.
Contents |
1960s
Family owned since 1960
The story of Springfield Creamery is a food tale unlike any other. It includes The Grateful Dead, Huey Lewis, author Ken Kesey and Gyoto Monks. It is a story of beneficial bacteria called L. acidophilus and of a bookkeeper whose name became a national brand. Most of all, it is a story of what can be achieved when a uniquely Oregon company born of the sixties counter-culture movement stays true to its principles of natural living, healthful foods, family and community.
Springfield Creamery got its start in 1960, when Chuck and Sue Kesey graduated from college and returned home to Springfield, Oregon. Chuck, brother of author Ken Kesey ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") and Sue, with support from Chuck's father Fred Kesey (manager of Eugene Farmers Creamery in Eugene) supplied gallon glass returnable jugs of milk to other creameries. They also supplied the Springfield schools with milk each school day.
By 1969, things had changed. Chuck's father had recently passed away, the dairy industry was in transition and the sixties natural foods movement was in full bloom. "We needed something to niche us, so we could remain independent, to create a brand of our own," says Sue Kesey. "We knew that if we were going to survive, we were going to have to do something that was different from everyone else. We had to find something unique."
What they found, in 1970, was yogurt. Nancy Hamren had moved to Oregon from San Francisco and was working at the creamery as a bookkeeper. Nancy had a strong dedication to doing things the natural way, and a love for yogurt that she'd inherited from her natural foods pioneering grandmother.
Chuck and Nancy started experimenting with making yogurt with acidophilus cultures. They sold it in glass canning jars and five-gallon buckets at Willamette People's Coop and Porters Fine Foods in Eugene, Ore. and became the first creamery in the U.S. to sell acidophilus cultured yogurt. "We never used sugar," says Nancy. "We cooked our own fruit and added vanilla and honey."
One day the manager from Willamette People's Coop called and said 'give me some more of that Nancy's Yogurt.' Sue says, "We thought, well, that sounds better than 'Chuck's Yogurt.'" The Nancy's brand was born.
Nancy's Yogurt expanded to the Bay Area thanks to two young entrepreneurs -- a University of Oregon graduate named Gilbert Rosborne and his partner, music legend Huey Lewis. "They had an underground comic book route, delivering the Fabulous Furry Brothers and R. Crumb comics to natural food stores in San Francisco," says Nancy. "Once a week, they rented a U-haul and packed it up with ice and Nancy's Yogurt and drove it down to the Bay Area. Somehow, people there connected Nancy's Yogurt with Chuck's brother, Ken Kesey. It took off."
A Grateful Dead Solution
But 1972 was a hard year financially. In an imaginative move, Chuck Kesey went down to Marin County and talked the Grateful Dead into coming up to Eugene and doing a benefit concert for the creamery. It was an epic event. More than 20,000 people attended. The tickets were printed on Nancy's Yogurt labels, and a movie was made of the concert entitled 'Sunshine Daydream.' Grateful Dead Concerts became a tradition after that, with 10 more concerts in the following years. "It always seemed like we had more awareness after those concerts," Nancy says. "Not that we ever put up banners saying 'brought to you by Nancy's Yogurt,' but concertgoers knew we were part of these events and we were part of this alternative culture that was music, natural foods and natural living."
Nancy's Expands
As demand for natural foods continued to grow, more natural foods stores opened and Nancy's Yogurt expanded to store shelves in Portland and Seattle. But the natural foods industry was still very regional. As distribution became more dependable, Nancy's Yogurt was one of the first natural food products to be distributed far from its production location.
And in time they reached out to the mainstream markets. "We had a lot of conversations with our smaller natural food customers in the late 70's, not wanting us to sell to mass market stores," says Sue. "But our mission has always been to get the best food at the best price to the most people. When the Safeways and Fred Meyers of the world came knocking on our door and said we'd really like to stock your product, it completely blew us away. It was one of the first natural food breakthroughs into mainstream markets, and it's been a wonderful relationship now for nearly 25 years."[[1]]
