NFIB

They'll Get Your Goat (Milk)
03/ 25/ 2002

by Jeff Louderback

A man, dressed in his Sunday best, appeared at the front door of Dennis and Patti Dean's palatial estate in rural Ohio. He was investigating the rumor that country music star Wynonna Judd had moved in and built a recording studio which was disguised as a barn.

"I told him that I would take him back there so he could look around," Patti Dean said with a smile. "But I explained that the only Wynonna he would find was a goat with that name. Actually, at the time she was one of our better milkers."

Patti and her husband Dennis Dean operate Willow Run Dairy, the first Grade A goat dairy in Ohio. With 800 does and bucks in six barns, Willow Run boasts the largest herd of dairy goats in the United States. About 400 does supply 4,000 pounds of milk a week for Willow Run's processing plant, which makes goat products sold under the brand name Caprine Estates.

With its rolling green fields and pristine white fences, the Dean estate looks like one of the horse farms in the area. When the family moved here in 1993, all that stood was the 12,500-square-foot mansion and a three-car garage. Now, six stately barns that house the goats stand behind the home. At the 47,000-square-foot processing plant, visitors watch the farm's 21 employees bottle milk, make cheese and run a retail store selling goat milk products.

In the early 1990s, Dennis Dean started to investigate the viability of opening a dairy goat farm. At the time, he was president of Dean Investment Associates, a profitable firm he co-founded with his father in 1973. Patti Dean was the firm's executive secretary. The Deans met with seasoned dairy goat farmers around the country, listening to success stories and hearing about failed ventures. Though goat's milk accounts for more than 70 percent of all milk purchased worldwide, the dairy goat industry in the United States is in its infancy. There are about 260 licensed dairies producing goat's milk in the United States and only 20 of these places have more than 50 milking does, Patti Dean estimates. At the time they were thinking about opening a goat dairy, the Deans had more than 200 does in their herd.

Though they had no formal farming experience, the Deans took a risk and followed their newfound passion. They left financially comfortable positions at the investment firm where Dennis earned a six-figure salary.

In 1999, they opened their processing plant, which allows the farm to pasteurize raw goat's milk. Before building the plant, the Deans shipped their milk weekly to a facility in Pennsylvania. Once Dennis Dean crunched the numbers, he determined that Willow Run would dramatically increase its bottom line by processing its own milk.

Caprine Estates products, sold online at www.caprineestates.com, are shipped to 18 states by Chicago-based Kehe Food Distributors. Recently, a Miami-based company started transporting the dairy's products to grocers in Panama. Revenues have increased 15 percent in each of the last two years, fueled by the increased distribution network and what the Deans believe is a wider acceptance of goat milk products in the United States.

"Around the world, more people drink goat's milk than cow's milk," Patti explains. "In the U.S., though, most people were raised on cow's milk, and that is what they're most comfortable with. Through all the tours we give, we are slowly changing the perception people have about goat's milk products. In many cases, people who try it for the first time here tell us it's not what they expected. They think it will be bitter, but instead it's sweet and flavorful."

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This article originally appeared in the November/December 2001 issue of MyBusiness Magazine, NFIB's member magazine.

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