One may purchase organic, raw milk cheddar, emmenthal, gouda, gruyere and parmesan from various vendors around town including: health food stores, grocery stores and cheese shops. If yoghurt specifies “milk ingredients” it likely has skim milk powder in it (to thicken the yoghurt).
Good choices – local dairies with grass-fed animals
Better choices – local dairies with grass-fed animals and organic practices
Best choices – unpasteurized (raw) milk from grass-fed animals raised in humane environment
Avalon, Vancouver, BC – Milk, butter. The organic cows graze on grasslands for a minimum of 16 hours a day. They receive minimal grain (mostly barley, plus peas, corn and flax) and hay and eat a lot of vegetables. The water they drink is filtered 3 times before they drink it, twice to remove debris and once to clear any chemicals.
Janice Beaton Fine Cheeses 1017 – 16 Ave SW
L’Ancetre, Quebec – cheese and butter. Raw milk medium and old cheddar, emmenthal and parmesan. The milk comes from about 15 to 20 Québec organic dairy farms. Each farm chooses the particular feed for their cows, but use pasture grazing in the summer. Raw and pasteurized cheeses.
Liberte, Quebec – Buys milk from the Federation des Producteurs de Lait du Québec (info@quebecvrai.org); There is no contact with the farmers directly and no information on cow’s conditions. The milk is certified organic. Product line includes kefir.
Olympic – All the dairy cows are antibiotic-and hormone-free. During the winter, they get grain (organic flax, corn and barley) and in the summer time it is a mixture of grass and grain. They have free access to both indoor and outdoor accommodations throughout the year.
Saugeen Country Markdale, Ontario – Cows are fed and milked in a large, timber frame bank barn. Their feed consists primarily of fresh grass and rolled grains in the summer and alfalfa hay, silage and rolled grains in the winter. They get a mineral supplement and salt to meet their nutritional needs. During the summer months the herd spends a lot of their time in pasture, coming in only for milking. They spend most of the winter in the barn, but still go outside for fresh air and exercise. The pasteurized yogurt contains two ingredients: non-homogenized whole milk and bacterial culture. Demeter certified (biodynamic)
Sylvan Star Farms Sylvan Lake. Cultured or regular butter, organic raw milk gouda. The cows are kept indoors, but eat hay and alfalfa, and grass in the summer. No grains in feed.
Vital Green Farms, Nobleford. Non-homogenized organic cow milk, heavy cream, yoghurt, crème fraiche, kefir, butter and buttermilk. The cows are pastured from May to October and fed hay and organic barley the rest of the year.
Primrose Farms, Big Valley. They have A2 Fleckvieh milk. Non homogenized but quick pasteurized. Amazing milk. Delivers to Calgary every Wednesday.
Rock Ridge Dairy, Ponoka. Goat products and organic cow milk products.