Farms: Meet Your Neighbor...Hunter Farms Ice Cream/Milk

Harvey B. Hunter started Hunter Dairy back in 1917 in Charlotte, NC. Mr. Hunter needed a way to get the milk his farm produced to market, so Hunter Farms was born. When he first started out, the milk produced by the cows on the Hunter Farm was often only a few hours old when it was delivered right to a customer's doorstep. The operation has grown from delivering the raw milk produced from a small dairy herd, to one which procures milk from 200 dairy farmers across a five-state area. It operates 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, and with over 130 employees it is now approaching $100 million dollars in annual sales. Hunter Farms has worked hard to continue to grow and keep pace with new ideas and technology. From the very beginning, Hunter Farms has been synonymous with quality. Hunter Farms supplies ice cream, milk, and other dairy products to Harris Teeter stores under the names of Hunter Farms, Highland Crest and Harris Teeter. Hunter Farms also supplies dairy products to major food service and quick-serve restaurant chains throughout the southeast. In 1980, Harris Teeter purchased Hunter Dairy in Charlotte. In 1990, Harris Teeter acquired the Borden Dairy Plant in High Point, which greatly increased dairy product production. In 2002, both were consolidated into the High Point Plant that exists today. All in a day's work... Hunter Farms gets milk from Producer Associations or Milk Cooperatives. 13,000 cows are milked to provide the plant with 645,000 lbs. or 75,000 gallons of milk - each day. That is approximately 50 lbs. or about 6 gallons of milk from each cow, every day, to keep consumers in milk and cookies. Hunter Farms works 24 hours-a-day, 5 days a week to turn out 7,200 gallons of milk per hour, 100,000 gallons per day, and that means about 22 million gallons per year. That includes; skim, half percent, 1%, 2%, whole milk, buttermilk, and chocolate milk. When it comes to ice cream, Hunter Farms produces 2.3 million gallons per year for Harris Teeter and other grocery stores. Hunter Farms produces Buttermilk for Hardee's and Frosty Mix for Wendy's that is distributed in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Tennessee. And we even make orange juice - a lot of it - 1 million gallons annually!