Having been raised in a kosher home, I had two kinds of
friends—those in whose homes I could eat and those in whose homes I couldn’t
eat. That was all good until I discovered a third category—the chalav Yisrael
crowd. Chalav Yisrael is a Jewish legal term referring to all dairy
products which derive from milk that has been milked under the supervision of
an observant Jew. Although most observant American Jews rely on the more
stringent US Department of Agriculture to guarantee all dairy labeled from a
kosher animal is authentic, some people still prefer supervision by an
observant Jew.
Chalav Yisrael doesn’t have a great reputation. The common
refrain is that it’s expensive and spoils quickly. To be honest, I have no idea
if that’s true since I walk right past it when shopping, but we recently took a
trip to Kreider Farms in Manheim, PA, where they produce Kreider Farms dairy products
as well as Pride of the Farm chalav Yisrael milk to see it for ourselves. We got an up-close tour of
the history of the farm and a trolley ride around the farm to see the cows in
action…well, the machines were in action milking the cows at least.
The day started out in the Kreider Farms Welcome Center
which was a pleasant waiting room before
the tour began. We arrived about 15
minute before our scheduled tour so the kids enjoyed the conveniently placed
home playground models for sale across the parking lot (we asked permission to
use them, of course). When the tour began, we met our tour guide, who was
exceedingly excited to give this tour—a little too excited. We then watched a
nice video about the farm and heard about its history and connection to the
Hershey family, of chocolate fame. 
We then piled onto the Kreider Farms Tour Trolley. The kids
were ecstatic to begin the 15 minute ride to the first stop. Unfortunately
though, this is when the tour on the trolley went off the rails. The tour
guide, who was as nice of a person as you could ask for in a guide, had way too much to say which was much too irrelevant for the audience.
She clearly knew a lot about the farm and its history, but I felt like she
shared every last bit of it with us, which was thoroughly exhausting. 
When we arrived at the first stop, it turned out to be a
drive through the cattle barn. We saw the cows come and go and then continued
driving for 10 more minutes before we finally stopped to get out and see a
newborn calf among the rest of the cows. I’ve seen good looking cows before
county fairs, but I had never seen cows at a sizable dairy farm. This was definitely
a highlight of the tour.
After another 10 minute drive around the farm, including a
trip past the manure and the manure treatment facility—which was surprisingly
captivating for me and the kids at least; Meghann didn’t enjoy it as much—we
finally came to the highlight of the tour: the Carousel.
The Carousel is where the cows are milked—slowly and
efficiently. Having been to a slaughter house before, the two sites were oddly
similar. All of the cows pile into an open room and are put through a bottleneck
to get to the next room. At Kreider Farms the cows are placed one-by-one onto a
slow-moving carousel where a pumping machine is manually placed on each cow
teat. [This is about the time I started to feel like a jerk for, on numerous
occasions, comparing my wife to a cow for spending countless hours pumping her
own milk into bottles for our children.] At this stage of the tour we could see
the cows up close. Not the faces of the cows though, just their rumps.
The kids had an opportunity at this time to milk water out
of a model Kreider Farms cow on display. That’s when the milk tasting began.
Each person was provided either milk or chocolate milk—which means everyone was
provided with chocolate milk since no one in their right mind would pass up 8
ounces of thick, heavy chocolate milk that coats your throat like honey.
Impressively, without asking, we were kindly offered Pride of the Farm milk and
chocolate milk! Absolutely delicious!
Our overall experience at Kreider Farms was good, but not
great. The tour itself was too long with too much unnecessary detail and a bit
too much time on the trolley. Once the tour started moving though it was a nice
time for our entire family.
Kashrus note: During the tour I saw an employee wearing a yarmulke so I asked him about the kosher status of the farm. He said that everything is kosher but only the milk and chocolate milk were chalav Yisrael—interestingly, he said that was even true regarding the Kreider Farms milk, not labeled chalav Yisrael.
When the tour was over and we returned to the Visitor Center and were told where we could buy Kreider Farm ice cream which the yarmulke-wearing man told us was kosher (not chalav Yisrael though). We went a few blocks away to a quaint establishment and prepared to order our ice cream. We noticed though that nothing was labeled kosher on any of the products. While fighting to hold the kids back while I called the Star-K (certifying kashrus organization) to confirm the status. Oddly enough, though nothing under the Kreider Farms label is actually labeled kosher, the rabbi in charge of managing Kreider Farms confirmed that everything was in fact “100% kosher.” If you do go to Kreider Farms in the future, I suggest calling the Star-K first, since I wouldn’t believe it had I not heard it myself from the rabbi in charge and the situation at the farm may have changed.
Overall rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Website: http://www.kreiderfarms.com
Location: Manheim, PA
Affordability: $
