Alaska Range Dairy is a family-run dairy operation located outside of Delta Junction. One of two Grade A dairies in Alaska, the business recently started selling milk in several Interior locations. According to Scott Plagerman, he and his family saw the need for more locally sourced food products in Alaska and drew upon their background in dairy farming to open the dairy earlier this year.
The Plagermans, which include Scott, his wife Connie and children Kyle, Jessica and Cody, are already an established Alaskan farming family and were named the Alaska State Fair Farm Family of the Year in 2016. They moved to Alaska from Washington state about 12 years ago after seeing an advertisement for a farm for sale in Delta Junction, Scott Plagerman explained. The family continues to raise beef, bison and horses on a separate farm.
Despite — or perhaps because of — their successes, the family wanted to expand. Plagerman has experience with dairy farming and, after visiting his brother’s dairy farm in Washington, decided to get back into it. About a year and a half ago, they bought a separate piece of land a few miles from their existing farm.
There were a few motivations behind the decision to return to dairy farming, Plagerman explained.
“We wanted to provide a future in agriculture for all our kids,” he said, and the dairy operation added another area that allowed all children to work on the farm in separate areas.
Another goal was increasing food security in the state.
“There’s a need for it in Alaska,” Plagerman said of Alaska grown food. “This state is so short on food, so we’ll do what we can to help that.” The only other dairy is hundreds of miles away, in Palmer.
From a business perspective, the Plagermans wanted to be unique. He explained that they knew they couldn’t compete with large-scale dairies, so they decided to make a different product. The milk is very minimally processed; it is not homogenized or separated and is vat pasteurized. This helps to retain flavor and quality. The milk also comes in glass bottles, which improves taste and is more environmentally friendly.
With all this in mind, in early 2020 the Plagermans started planning and purchasing used equipment for the dairy. They began acquiring cows earlier this year. The Plagermans got cows locally from “people who were tired of their backyard dairy cow,” as well as from the other Alaskan dairy. Initially, Plagerman explained, the plan was to buy cows in Washington or Canada and truck them to Alaska, but Canada’s Covid-19 border restrictions made that impossible.
As a result, some of the cows “aren’t the greatest or the prettiest, but they’re getting better,” Plagerman said.
They started milking the cows toward the end of March and began reaping enough milk to sell in May. Alaska Range Dairy currently has about 20 cows, and are adding more each month. “We really have no limit” on herd size, Plagerman said, but hope to double the herd by the end of the year. The cows are milking better than expected, producing an average six to eight gallons per cow per day.
The Plagermans also process and bottle milk on location, an aspect of the operation which was new to them. Due to the tight regulations, getting the processing and bottling room up to code took time. “We had a lot of questions,” Plagerman said. A DEC inspector made trips from Anchorage to inspect the operation.
So far, it appears that more cows are necessary — Plagerman said the product has been “very well” received. According to one happy customer, it tastes like “a milkshake in a bottle,” he said. This is because the milk is as close to natural as it comes. It’s basically “straight from the cow, and that keeps the texture and flavor, richness of it ... there’s almost no comparison,” Plagerman said.
A central reason the product is so good, he said, is because the cows are treated well. The animals are free to roam in the barn and outside (except in the winter).
“It makes for very comfortable, leisurely cows,” Plagerman said. This is crucial to successful dairy farming, he added. “It is very important that you have comfortable cows.” If a cow is stressed, it won’t produce as well. “Every dairy farm that is out there treats its cows like queens.”
There are a few challenges of raising dairy cows — and farming in general — in Alaska. “Things are definitely more difficult than other places in the country,” Plagerman said. The biggest hurdle is the lack of resources. “You’re completely on your own,” he explained. For example, there is no veterinarian so the family takes care of all animal care and breeding themselves. The Plagermans also fix all the equipment when needed. And, due to limits on kinds of feed they can purchase, the family grows all the food for the cows themselves.
Alaska Range Dairy milk is sold in several locations (both on its own and in products) in Delta Junction, including the Alaska Farmers Co-Op, Buffalo Center Service, Delta Petro Wash, Silver Fox Roadhouse. Higher Grounds and the Buffalo Center Drive-in are using the milk in products. The milk is also sold at the Salcha Store and, in Fairbanks, at Alaska Feed and Farm, the Mid Town Market, the Roaming Root Cellar and the Co-op Market. The glass bottles can be returned to any sales location.
Contact reporter Maisie Thomas at 459-7544.
