The full Houlton Farms milk display at Steaks N’ Stuff in Presque Isle is about to become history, and the brothers who own the store are feeling a loss.
“It’s local, and it’s really hard to lose something local,” co-owner Jimmy Donahue said Wednesday. “We’re not a number with them, we’re an actual name.”
Co-owner Joe Donahue agreed, and both said it was almost emotional on Friday when the dairy’s driver delivered their stock and then quietly handed them an envelope. The letter inside stated that Houlton’s family-owned dairy, the only white milk processor and distributor north of the Portland area, would discontinue its milk line by the end of September.
The Lincoln family, who’ve owned the company for 43 years, have seen dairy farms around them dwindle and are now only supplied by one farm. With mounting production costs and falling white milk sales, they could no longer suffer the losses, co-owner Eric Lincoln said Friday. They’ll buy cream and continue to make ice cream, their legendary butter and lemonade, and possibly their popular chocolate milk, but the days of pouring a glass of Aroostook-processed white milk are almost over.
For County grocers, that will mean sourcing milk from Portland, where Maine’s other commercial dairy processors, Hood and Oakhurst, are headquartered. Those dairies will likely have to make more frequent trips north, some grocers said. But it’s really too soon to tell how the change will impact their bottom line, Donahue said.
“The other milk guys come once a week. Houlton Farms comes three times a week,” Jimmy Donahue said. “We’ve reached out to Hood and Oakhurst to see if they’re going to change their routes, but we just don’t know yet.”
Andy Marino, owner of Andy’s IGA Foodliner in Houlton, said his store has been doing business with the local dairy for more than 50 years. The product quality is excellent and the company is great to deal with, Marino said.
People buy the locally made products anywhere from five to 10 times more than other brands. He didn’t have exact numbers of how much milk and other Houlton Farms products the store sells, but said it was a lot.
Many of the store’s customers are older people who are familiar with the Houlton Farms name and products. Some are a bit worried, he said.
The store will be forced to obtain more milk from southern Maine, he said.
“There are two other dairies, Oakhurst and Hood. They’re good companies, too, but there’s nothing like a local company,” Marino said.
He will miss the service, as well. Houlton Farms’ drivers would stock the milk shelves and take away stale product, which the other companies don’t do, he said.
The news is so fresh that Star City IGA in Presque Isle doesn’t have a plan yet for when Houlton Farms milk goes away, said store manager Declan Curtis.
“Honestly, we’re not sure yet. We haven’t decided what we’re going to do,” he said.
Not many customers are aware of the change yet, but some have been surprised, Curtis said. He didn’t have amounts at hand, but the store stocks a lot of Houlton Farms products, he said. They’re all popular with customers.
Attempts to reach owners of Sleeper’s in Caribou were unsuccessful.
Scarborough-based Hannaford operates supermarkets in Houlton, Caribou, Fort Kent and Madawaska. A reporter was directed to the corporate office, which did not respond to requests for comment.
Houlton Farms Dairy posted its notice on its Facebook page Friday, thanking staff and customers for their loyalty through the years and reassuring them that some products, and the iconic seasonal dairy bars in Houlton, Presque Isle and Caribou, will continue. Responders shared messages of support and relief that they’ll still be able to buy many of their favorite products.
Grocers are happy about that, too.
“On a positive note, they’re still going to make butter and ice cream and we’ll continue carrying them,” Marino said.
Joe Donahue said when Houlton Farms delivers, their products fly off the shelves that same day — especially the butter.
“The butter is amazing,” he said. “People come in every [delivery] day, and it sells out every day.”
And there is one familiar Houlton Farms milk icon that isn’t going away: the nearly 7-foot-tall wooden milk carton that decorates the outside of the Presque Isle dairy bar. Freshly painted and reinstalled last year, it stands as a testament to the 1938 founding of “Aroostook’s first pasteurizing dairy.”
