Today we travelled north to Plattsburg and visited Shatto Milk Company. Seven years ago, Leroy Shatto faced a huge challenge keeping his small dairy farm alive. For many people in his situation, the choices were to sell up - or go bust. Instead he chose to diversify and moved away from being a supplier to Dairy Farms of America (Fonterra's US equivalent) and started bottling and marketing his own milk in traditional glass bottles to the local Kansas City community through three supermarkets. Seven years on, Shatto Milk employs 31 people, the herd has quadrupled in size, revenues have increased from $700K to $10M, they host 60,000 tourist visitors a year and their product range includes every milk you can imagine, butter, cheese, icecream and soap. This year their root beer milk won "first in the world" in the open category at the World Dairy Exposition. Second place went to the dairy's strawberry milk. The company's 2 percent milk won second place in the white milk category. A year ago their chocolate milk placed third in the chocolate milk category and if there is one - let alone two - better chocolate milks in the known universe then I'm a Dutchman. For more on Shatto Milk check out http://www.shattomilk.com/ Special thanks to our tour guide, Matt Shatto, son of the proprietor and Assistant City Administrator at Lenexa City, Kansas.
Heading back to Blue Springs we stopped off for lunch at an authentic Missouri "greasy spoon" in Lathrop, MO called "The Hungry Mule". The major event of the afternoon was a flight over the Kansas City Metropolitan area with local real estate agent Chuck Zuvers. Chuck is the proud owner of a 1958 Beechcraft Bonanza and we spent 80 minutes enjoying great views of the city and landmarks like the stadia of the Kansas City Chiefs (football), the Kansas City Royals (baseball), the Kansas City Speedway, the Iatan 2 Power station, Fort Leavenworth Federal prison and more. Thank you so much Chuck for a fantastic experience.
After supper, we rounded off the day with a trip downtown to the Power & Light Grille where we (Richard, Christine, Eric and Eric's neighbour Roy - a big jazz fan) were treated to some R&B from blues and jazz musician Eddie Charles, before stopping off for a nightcap and a little rock music at Joe's - a local watering hole.
Heading back to Blue Springs we stopped off for lunch at an authentic Missouri "greasy spoon" in Lathrop, MO called "The Hungry Mule". The major event of the afternoon was a flight over the Kansas City Metropolitan area with local real estate agent Chuck Zuvers. Chuck is the proud owner of a 1958 Beechcraft Bonanza and we spent 80 minutes enjoying great views of the city and landmarks like the stadia of the Kansas City Chiefs (football), the Kansas City Royals (baseball), the Kansas City Speedway, the Iatan 2 Power station, Fort Leavenworth Federal prison and more. Thank you so much Chuck for a fantastic experience.
After supper, we rounded off the day with a trip downtown to the Power & Light Grille where we (Richard, Christine, Eric and Eric's neighbour Roy - a big jazz fan) were treated to some R&B from blues and jazz musician Eddie Charles, before stopping off for a nightcap and a little rock music at Joe's - a local watering hole.
PS I have just added some photos and a video of the bottling plant as you could get so close - right up beside the plant - there are no health and sadety regulations to comply with here and it was fantastic. The flight left me speechless it was AMAZING and a real highlight (Christine)
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