Why this high-end Vermont dairy couldn't survive

A Vermont dairy farm that has been running for decades has stopped its dairy production. It comes after they made the innovative switch to organic and bottling their own milk to help stand above the competition. Our Ike Bendavid has the story on Kimball Brook Farm and what's next.

What was once a busy creamery is now empty and holding the last few cases of milk.

"When we started out we thought we could ramp up a lot faster than we did," Cheryl DeVos said.

DeVos and her husband run Kimball Brook Farm in Ferrisburgh. At its peak, they had around 225 milking cows.

In 2005, they made the switch to organic farming to get more money for their milk. In 2012, they went even further, opening their own creamery and getting rid of the middleman, milking the cows and bottling the milk themselves.

But even that was not enough to avoid the financial realities of the dairy business-- a supply and demand imbalance that keeps profits low.

"Organic milk has been in an oversupply. And even a local company like this that makes organic milk has issues with that," DeVos said.

Kimball Brook faced stiff competition from other organic dairies and a decline in milk consumption as people turn to milk alternatives like plant-based "milk." DeVos says they just could not make enough money to cover their debts.

"But to play catch up from those beginning years where we were going behind, we have never been able to catch up," she said.

DeVos says they are not giving up on farming in Vermont. In the last few years they have introduced a line of teas and recently a line of CBD teas, a product line they will continue to sell.

"We still don't know what it's going to mean for our farm," DeVos said.

Kimball Brook is joining a long line of farms jumping into the growing hemp and CBD industry. But DeVos knows that's not a sure thing either.

"It's not going to be the fix-all for Vermont dairy farms and we don't even know if it's the fix-all for us, but we knew that dairy wasn't," she said.

People we talked to were saddened to hear of another Vermont dairy farm going under.

"I'm sad to see a lot of us closing," said Mary Meunier of Huntington.

"I'm disappointed, have seen a lot of dairy farms over the years go away, I see a lot go away," said Henry Houston of Richmond.

As for DeVos and Kimball Brook, they've already sold off most of their cows. They plan to sell off their processing equipment in an auction in March and hope their CBD products will provide a financial future.