Farmer fought at tribunal to establish Ontario’s first on-farm organic dairy processing plant

ST. EUGENE — Ontario has 20 cow-milk dairy producers licensed to process and market at least some of their own milk, and the Dairy Farmers of Ontario happily encourages this niche industry. But entry into on-farm dairy processing wasn’t quite as buttery smooth for trailblazer Josef Heinzle almost 30 years ago.

In the early 1990s, the St. Eugene dairy farmer had to apply for a dairy-processing licence through the same channels as any food-manufacturing company. His application was opposed by competing mainstream processors, who appealed to a provincial tribunal. Heinzle, owner and operator of Pinehedge Farms — maker of organic yogurt and kefir since 1994 — says the tribunal ruled in his favour and allowed him to process his own milk. His application received “a lot of support” from his local community, member of parliament and fellow farmers, he recalls. The idea was so new, he remembers how one farmer asked during a hearing if the Heinzle farm still had to adhere to its production quota. (It does, and currently holds 85 kg of quota.)

He says it was another industry obstacle of that era that prompted him to pursue processing in the first place. There was a lack of a separate collection stream for organic milk. The Heinzle farm, founded by his late father, Anton, when the family immigrated to Canada in 1982, embraced organic production. Josef Heinzle, now 56, had the operation officially certified as organic when he took over. But there was no way to earn a premium for his organic milk — unless they made their own organic products and marketed them themselves. When the modest plant went on line in 1994, it was the first on-farm organic milk-processing plant in Ontario, he says, and one of the very first on-farm stores. Today, DFO picks up organic milk as a separate stream, though most of the output from Heinzle’s 95-head, grass-fed, mixed-breed production herd goes straight into his own processing and marketing operation.

As a practical matter, Heinzle settled on plain yogurt and kefir as his main products. Both are fairly simple to make and have a good shelf life. Because his primary passion is still farming, “I didn’t want to spend all of my time in the processing plant,” he explains. The business has since added sour cream and a “light” version of kefir. Kefir, like yogurt, is a form of fermented milk, though thinner and made with a bacterial culture that does its work at a cooler temperature than the culture used to make yogurt.