Chobani, High Tunnels, and the Database

I can't believe I have been here for almost a whole month! It has been really nice working with everyone, and the atmosphere is great, very open communication, and people care about what is going on each day so they can keep track of each other. I spent a lot of time last week on the database that our office uses on filemaker pro. The database contains a lot of different information from profiles of state Senators and Assembly-Members, to Congressmen, to Cornell staff, as well as event information, issues we deal with and people who work on them, letters we write, on all sorts of people we frequently connect with. My project was to update and add profiles for all of the New York Senators and Assembly Members, in addition to Congressmen. I visited each of their websites and got updated contact information, photos, committees they are on and issues they are involved in. It was interesting to see just how long some people have been in office and the districts that they represent. While it was not the most exciting project, it also helped me learn more about the people we are working with and connect the names with faces.

On Friday I went on a trip with Lee to Chenango County for a Chobani lunch and celebration of the dairy industry in the county as well as highlight the past successes and future plans of Chobani. The food was delicious, and of course we had chobani yogurt parfaits with berries and granola. The 2012 Chenango County Dairy Princess made a short speech, as well as Ken Smith from Cornell Cooperative Extension. Finally Hamdi Ulukaya, the President, CEO and Founder of Chobani spoke. It was really wonderful to hear the Chobani story and the focus that they have on job creation, dairy farms, and economic development that benefits the area. Hamdi grew up in Turkey, and his family had sheep and cows and made yogurt and cheese. He came to the U.S. to learn English and go to business school, and started a feta cheese company. Hamdi talked about taking out an SBA loan buying the Kraft plant in 2005 that had been closed for a long time. He seemed to really focus on the importance on everyone in the operation and talked about the first year of operation with his first employees and selling yogurt to one grocery store. It took a year and a half until they got the perfect cup of yogurt and they launched the prodcut in 2007 calling it Chobani which means shepherd. It was amazing to hear that Chobani is now the number three brand of yogurt in the country that ships 1.7 million yogurt cases weekly to stores around the country! This year they are even an olympic sponsor, and Hamdi is taking five of his original employees who have been there with him since the beginning to London with him. It is nice to hear a story of a company with a great product being so successful, and how he understands the products connection to farms. He mentioned how the company is just a link in the chain, with milk coming from cows on dairy farms and then being processed and made into yogurt and then the supermarkets and consumers and that many people do not see these links between the food they eat and the farms it comes from.

The second half of the day Lee and I traveled out to Norwich Meadows Farm  which is about 80 acres total, with only some of that in production. They are totally organic and actually sell 90% of their product in New York city. We were there to learn more about the 4.5 acres of high tunnels they were growing food in. It was incredible to see, just rows and rows and rows of these hoop houses with everything from swiss chard to strawberries to artichokes inside!

High tunnels (aka hoop houses) are unheated, semi-permanent structures made out of steel hoops and covered in plastic. They are sited on field soil, and usually have roll up side curtains for passive ventilation, and they are cheaper to build then greenhouses. We learned about how water and manpower were really the largest limiting factors to using high tunnels, but they offer season extension and protection from pests and inclement weather. They have been using high tunnels for many years, and so we could see some of the first ones they used, and how they changed the over the years with spacing and length and design. They have been very inventive and focused on good management.

It was really interesting to hear one of the partners talking about how intellectually demanding farming is, especially since he is a doctor during the day. He felt that the farmer has to be a jack of all trades, and must be an economist, biologist, agronomist, soil scientist, manager, businessman, etc. It really is a demanding job! I really enjoyed seeing the farm and was amazed at just how many different crops they grew. They even had their own bee-hives and made honey!