Jul 13, 2020

Solar Food – milk from Puttersjaus Farm

Heading north from Visby we made a stop at Puttersjaus Dairy Farm to meet with Lotta and Anders Bogren and their cows. And chickens :-) Their milk in glass bottles caught our eye at a health food store in Stockholm as a great zero-waste and local alternative. On Gotland, we also visited Lilla Bjers and Gisslause Lamb Farm

Buying milk in glass bottles right after seeing it being milked from a cow we just said hello to, adds a lot of value to life in general and grocery shopping in particular...

Here they are, the 35 happy mountain cows (Fjällko) originating from northern Sweden. They live outdoors in fields and forests around the barn in order for them to build muscles and stamina by nature like cows should be doing, while eating a variety of grass, moss, roots, and leaves from trees and bushes.

The milk, filmjölk (sour milk), and yogurts are sold in glass bottles. Milk from Putterjaus Farm is delivered on Gotland and in some stores on the mainland. We found Lotta's milk in the food store Rot Store & Kitchen in Stockholm and fell in love with the bottles and their content earlier this spring.

Check out the snippet video where Lotta explains why she chose glass bottles:

The cows are milked twice a day and they only eat food from the farm – whatever greens growing on the fields and in the forests, complemented with grass grown and harvested on the farm as well as a small portion of home-grown crushed grain on a daily basis.

Lotta and Anders let a calf stay and drink the milk she deserve from the mother. The calfs are held outdoor in the forest for three years to build up their bodies in a natural way before it is time for their own calfs and milking. On large scale high efficiency dairy farms a cow delivers her first calf after 2 years and the calfs are separated from the mother more or less directly after birth.

Since the calfs stay with the mom and have free access to the milk, the amount of milk for production and sale varies from day to day.

Processed and sealed directly on the farm

The dairy products are minimally processed and refined immediately after the milking every day. Lotta and Anders produce pasteurized milk, sour milk (Filmjölk), yoghurt, butter and some cheese. The milk is poured into the bottles at 77 degrees Celcius and the cooled off in an ice water bath. There are no additives other than the bacterial culture in the natural milk itself.

Puttersjaus butter packaging in da making at the farm dairy...

Okay, we purchased some milk and yoghurt from their fridge (produced yesterday) and we even got to buy one bottle of raw milk, filled up in a glass bottle minutes after it was milked.