North Bay Business Journal

Water quality officials set to OK dairy permits

North Coast water-quality regulators plan to complete regulations for how dairies deal with manure to prevent contamination of waterways during rainstorms, but the industry in Marin and Sonoma counties has a three-decade head start thanks to a public-private self-monitoring program.

Straus signs supply deal with Correia

WEST MARIN – Straus Family Creamery is sustaining its organic growth in sales of dairy products with the addition of a Petaluma family producer to its group of certified-organic milk suppliers.

Weirauch dairy, creamery to launch

PETALUMA – Joining the growing community of North Bay artisan cheese makers are Joel and Carleen Weirauch, who have applied for a dairy processing permit and intend to make farmstead sheep milk cheese.

Organic dairy family turns to cheese making

WEST MARIN COUNTY – Seeking relief from wildly fluctuating milk prices, another organic dairy family has turned to cheese making.

Redwood Hill goes solar

SEBASTOPOL – Redwood Hill Farm Dairy and Creamery contracted One Sun Inc. to design and install a 586 kW solar PV system at its processing facility in Sebastopol.

Organic ice cream maker Three Twins adds production plant

PETALUMA – Three Twins Ice Cream, which started small in 2005 and grew to three retail operations in the Bay Area, has opened an organic production plant in Petaluma.

Straus to move some operations to Petaluma

PETALUMA — Straus Family Creamery plans to move its offices and warehousing from the West Marin community of Marshall to a more central location in Petaluma early next year.

Facebook does an about-face on dairy ban

NORTH BAY — Clover Stornetta Farms and Straus Family Creamery, which have nearly 2,000 and 1,000 Facebook page fans, respectively, were surprised to hear early last week of a recent change in the giant Internet social network’s promotions policy banning dairy products.

UPDATE, Dec. 22, 2009: Facebook revised its promotions policy to remove the ban on mentioning dairy but still prohibits the offering of dairy products as prizes.

CEO to leave Clover by year-end

PETALUMA – Kevin Imm, who has been chief executive officer of dairy processor Clover Stornetta Farms for five years and working there for 20, plans to retire from company management and ownership at the end of this year.

Laura Chenel to build new plant in Sonoma

SONOMA — Laura Chenel’s Chevre announced plans today to build a new creamery in the city of Sonoma.

North Coast dairy to expand own brand of premium ice cream

FORTUNA – Humboldt County is about to star in an aggressive ad campaign extolling the virtues of premium ice cream from Humboldt dairy cows.