BELLBROOK, Ohio —Believing that dairy goats are wonderful animals whose milk is great not only in and of itself but also in a myriad of foods, Dennis and Patti Dean are taking that conviction to consumers throughout Ohio and beyond.

The Deans are the owners of Caprine Estates, a dairy goat milk manufacturing and marketing company they opened a little more than two years ago in the fall of 1998. Caprine Estates, which includes the first Grade A goat dairy processing plant in Ohio since the 1930s, is an offshoot of the Dean family's other dairy company, Willow Run Dairy — home to a herd of more than 1,000 goats.

Caprine Estates uses a portion, but not all, of the milk produced by the dairy goat herd that's milked twice daily in a modern milking parlor which rivals any dairy cow facility. The double-12 parlor includes automatic take-offs, electronic milk measuring and automatic individualized rations. The average doe produces about a gallon of milk a day, and what isn't used by Caprine Estates' own manufacturing facility is sold to Bongrain Cheese USA's Fleur de Lait plant and to Dionis, a Charlottesville, Va., company that makes soap and lotion using milk.

All of this is quite a change from the early 1980s, when Patti Dean bought three goats to clear the land for her horses. She found that the goats didn't clear the land they way she wanted, but she fell in love with them nonetheless. And sure enough, as time went on, the herd started to grow larger and larger and until it consisted of more than 300 goats.

As the Deans tell it, Dennis Dean, ever the business man, decided that their hobby needed to become a business. So the Deans eventually relocated their Huber Heights, Ohio, herd to 165 acres in Bellbrook, Ohio, south of Dayton, where they remain today.

After their move in 1993, they began the process of looking into what it would take to go into the dairy goat products business, says Ron Best, COO and director of sales and marketing for Caprine Estates. Knowing that some people have negative images of dairy goats — mistakenly thinking they're dirty, trash-eating animals — the Deans conducted a broad range of market research before building their plant.

"One of the things they did was to put together focus groups and do blind taste tests to find what the Midwest consumer would accept," Best says.

And the more they traveled and met with people, the greater the demand they found for goat's milk.

Thus, the Deans went to work creating their products. Starting with 12 flavors of goat's milk cheese developed by daughter Stacey Dean, Caprine Estates ultimately had chosen six flavors of spreadable Chèvre to market: Plain, Western Ranch, Sesame Seed, Garlic & Dill, Sundried Tomato & Basil, and Gingered Plum. The company also sells cheese crumbles in Plain, Western Ranch and Garlic & Dill flavors.

In addition, the company sells cajeta, a carmel dessert topping made from goat's milk as well as fudge in a variety of flavors. The goat's milk fudge is particularly popular during the holidays in the Midwest and Mideast, Best says.

What really is the company's best seller, though, is its goat's milk. The milk is available in both homogenized and whole (not homogenized) forms in pints and quarts. The company also sells pints and quarts of chocolate milk, which Best describes as a novelty item.

It's not that the company's cheese doesn't sell well. But whereas cheese sales took off and then leveled off when Caprine Estates opened its doors, fluid milk sales continue to grow. Much of what the company sells is handled through its distributor, Kehe Food Distributors, east of the Mississippi River. In a few instances, Caprine Estates also sells frozen milk to customers and ships it via UPS, Best says.

The milk generally is sold to specialty foods and organic stores (although the milk isn't organic), something that's fairly typical for a product that isn't quite mainstream. However, one of Caprine Estates' newest customers — Target — may surprise some. Super Targets, which include groceries, have been carrying Caprine Estate's goat's milk since August. The milk sells for $4.79 per quart.

With the opening of Caprine Estates two years ago, the company has helped drive this interest with its "The milk made for me™" marketing campaign which notes that the solids in goat's milk are more easily digestible for people who consider themselves lactose intolerant. Included on a variety of promotional materials, the theme has even made its way to billboards in Ohio.

Caprine Estates also takes a hands-on approach to marketing its products with an aggressive sampling schedule. Jeff Nagel, company chef, and Best say they have done about 100 store demos in the past year.

"The Midwest hasn't really been exposed to goat products," Best says. "That's where Jeff comes in."

Besides just sampling product in stores, Nagel has developed a variety of recipes using goat's milk and cheese. He has held workshops showing people how to make a full course meal using Caprine Estates' products and has held cooking demonstrations at the Ohio State Fair.

"It gives people an idea of what to do with the product," says Nagel, who plans to develop a recipe booklet in the future.

A lot of the company's efforts are to get consumers beyond their preconceived notions about goat's milk products.

"You have to get people to taste the product and get over the stereotyping," Nagel says.

Best also will be taking similar action with a class he's presenting at the University of Minnesota with Willow Run Dairy's staff veterinarian. In fact, a lot of the marketing efforts for the goat's milk products are an integrated effort with the farm.

Caprine Estates operates its own on-premises retail store and offers tours of the whole operation, from seeing newborn kids to watching milking to seeing how the end product is made. Visitors are impressed with the quality of the facility and the care of the goats, who have a better lifestyle than many people, Best says. And oftentimes seeing the goats, people fall in love with them and then are much more interested in the products.

"We have people come into the store on the way to the tour who say, 'I don't like goats,'" he says. "But after the tour, they're pretty hyped up. It's our way of breaking the barrier."

With that barrier being broken down over the past couple of years and some of Caprine Estates' product moving into the mainstream east of the Mississippi River, the company now also wants to find a distributor west of the Mississippi that will handle product for specialty food shops, Best says.

This coming year, the company will continue to focus on its fluid milk products, Best says.

"The thrust will be to keep developing the liquid market," he says, noting that the product is less labor-intensive than cheese and has a higher profit margin.

But that doesn't mean the company won't be branching out with its cheese business.

"In the first quarter, we'll be looking for a consultant to work with us on hard cheeses," Best says, adding that he hopes Caprine Estates will be able to roll out some hard cheeses in the third or fourth quarter.

CMN