Last month, I wrote about Straus Family Creamery, organic dairy producers who supply us with milk and cream in glass bottles. This month I’d like to introduce you to the enthusiastic folks from Wilcox Family Farms, who supply us with skim, 1%, 2% and whole milk in half-gallon containers.

Wilcox Family Farms is a fourth generation family farm located in the foothills of Mt Rainier. Judson Wilcox, a farmer’s son and adventurer from Toronto, came out West to try to strike it rich in the gold fields. When that venture, and another as a shop owner, failed he remembered his roots and bought 240 acres in Roy, Washington. Initially, the family peddled their produce to the local logging camps. As the years passed, they expanded their operations to include chickens, and then cows. Judson’s grandsons, Jim and Barrie, were instrumental in establishing the dairy end of the business. Today they, along with their sons, oversee operations at the now 1700-acre farm. Of this land, 436 acres is either certified organic or transitioning. The Wilcox dairy herd, 200 cows in number, utilizes most of the land for pasture; the rest is used for organic hay production.

Wilcox values the environment and supports sustainable farming practices. Their manure is either composted or utilized as fertilizer in organic farming. They operate an independent, enclosed water system where they treat their wastewater to remove harmful impurities then re-use it on their crop lands. Their cows are grazed a minimum of 120 days annually at a stocking rate of two animals per acre on a rotational basis.

Wilcox owns about 2.5 acres of riverfront property along the Nisqually River. To assure that their farming methods don’t harm the salmon that spawn there, they became Salmon Safe Certified in 2005. This means they: maintain vegetated buffer zones between their cropland and the riverbank; minimize water usage; and do not use any pesticides in their farming practices. Wilcox is also USDA and Oregon Tilth Certified Organic.

Wilcox is community minded. They’ve won both the Puget Sound Family Business of the Year and the Washington State Environmental Farm Excellence Awards; they pay their employees a competitive living wage; and they lend some of their organic land to local organizations and co-ops so that they can grow organic veggies.

In addition to milk, the Co-op also carries Wilcox Family Farms cage-free brown and white eggs. Keep a close eye on our yogurt set, because soon they will be offering organic 6-oz yogurts in a variety of flavors. If any of you are ever in the Roy area, Wilcox gladly welcomes visitors. In addition, they host several festive events a year. For further information, check out their web site www.wilcoxfarms.com.