Raw Milk in Minneapolis

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Update, June 2010: Kalisch Farms is not an option for buying raw milk products.

Just a quick review of the Kalisch family farm, a Minneapolis-based CSA where you can get raw, organic milk products, eggs, vegetables (in season), meat, and more. My brother found this farm somewhere, but I have found their link on the Raw Milk Locator page on RealMilk.com as well.

My first reaction, which was as of this writing a few months ago, to finding the website was to scour their site for offered products, read about their farm and user reviews, and to check out the pictures of happy cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, goats, and other animals in their "Pictures from the Farm" album.

If sometime I get the chance, I'd love to take this fact-finding a bit further and actually go visit the farm, to see it in person, as I believe that to be an important part of the Psychic Lunch idea: knowing what you eat. Until then, the photos and other users opinions were enough for me to try them out, and I'm glad I did.

We've purchased, so far, only organic oats and raw milk through them so I can't review all of their products, but that will most likely to change with time as our overall reaction to their farm is a positive one. The milk tastes like real milk. It's hard to describe except to say that it really feels like it has all the nutrients and taste that regular, store-bought milk sorely lacks. Oh - and it has a hand-written date on the glass bottle (with recyclable plastic top) of only six days from when it's delivered. Six Days! Isn't that great? I shudder when I think of how long conventional milk sits around during its collection and distribution processes.

So from experience and as far as I can tell, the quality of the products is top-notch. I have faith that what I order and eat from the Kalisch family is healthy and clean. I do feel the need to voice some criticism, because there are a couple of things that should (and, I suspect or hope, will) change at some point:

Ordering from the website is at first unintuitive, because there actually IS no order form. You just email (farmer) Kalisch directly and tell him what you'd like to pick up and where. Their dropoff day is usually Thursday but it can change depending on holidays or perhaps other issues. There are several locations that Jay will drive to for a dropoff. Once you've gotten your first order, you can also ask to set it up so that you can be called with the dropoff time. Bring cash - preferably exact change, and double-check the website occasionally to make sure the price hasn't increased on you without your knowledge. That happened to me once! [update: I have since learned you can write a check.]

(Not the Kalisch Farm)

So, the whole ordering process is a very manual kind of experience, but you get used to it once you know the rules. When I send emails to Kalisch Farm, I often do not receive a response if it's regarding an order. I would suspect that he's probably not on the computer a whole lot and that he's probably pretty busy handling everything else. If they would invest the time to streamline their website for ordering, customers would most likely feel a lot better about the process and they would regain a lot of time themselves, I suspect.

Once in a while, perhaps as a result of the ordering process being messy or just by accident (who knows?), orders will not actually come in. The first time I ordered, one of the products I requested wasn't delivered. One time, my brother's order never appeared, and I have seen other customer complaints on their website regarding this kind of thing happening as well.

All in all, I think that as time goes by their order and delivery process will improve to match the excellence of their products and despite all the negatives even at this point, I still recommend Kalisch farm as a good source of real food.

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