Glass milk bottles clink in crates in the back of Jackie Coldsmith’s truck as she makes the weekly trip from her farm in Taneytown to a parking lot near Panera Bread in Westminster. If you are old enough, the sound might take you back 60 years, to the day when the milkman delivered his products to your door.
Since August, Coldsmith has turned back time for a growing number of customers by delivering milk in glass bottles, as well as a variety of other products such as fresh yogurt, eggs, butter and cheese that she orders from Pennsylvania’s Trickling Springs Creamery in Chambersburg, PA.
Many of her customers were already members of Coldsmith’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and fans of the vegetables, herbs and flowers she grows at her own De La Tierra Gardens and sells at the local farmers’ markets.
A groundswell of support from her CSA, the farmers market clientele and mothers in her natural parenting group pushed the client base for Coldsmith’s glass bottled milk from 15 to 45 this winter. Many say her product is better than any other milk they have tasted.
“It has an unbelievably rich flavor,” said Westminster resident Ruth Akers. “I love to take a spoon and scoop up the cream that rises to the top.”
“I put that cream in my coffee,” said her husband, Tom.
The Akers’ cats know what is coming when Ruth pulls a glass bottle out of the refrigerator.
“The cats don’t line up for the regular stuff,” she said.
At $3.50 per half gallon for natural milk and $4.20 for organic milk in a glass bottle, Coldsmith’s products are more expensive than milk in plastic or cardboard cartons at grocery stores, but Coldsmith’s milk is a luxury that patrons say they can afford.
“I could buy milk that is synthesized, mechanized, pulverized and euthanized, but I’m very watchful of what I eat and drink,” said Ed Gregg of Westminster, who stood in line in a local parking lot on a brisk night in late November to purchase Coldsmith’s product. “And I love the cream on the top.”
Coldsmith’s love for plants and all things natural took root when she earned her degree in environmental science at Hood College in Frederick and then did an internship on an organic farm in Vermont.
She has run her own business for six years and relishes being a one-woman operation. Her husband, Travis, teaches at New Windsor Middle School, so Coldsmith’s business, she said, is supplemental income.
She hopes business keeps growing and that one day she can open a small store.
“I love everything about this,” said Coldsmith. “And I know people are making a real good living at it. More and more people are starting to care about whether or not their food is naturally grown.”
For more information about De La Tierra Gardens: www.delatierragardens.com or Trickling Springs Creamery: www.tricklingspringscreamery.com.
