Hartzler Family Dairy Is Still Bottling Milk the Old-Fashioned Way

"(My grandfather’s) tagline was as nature intended it to be," a now-adult Jace Hartzler says over the phone.

In the early 1990s, Hartzler was just a child climbing through the scaffolding of a new milk processing plant that was built on the land that his grandpa, Harold Hartzler, father Joe Hartzler and uncles had just gotten done clearing.

Before the land was selected in 1990, Harold, the patriarch, led by God, gathered his children to discuss an idea he had, which was eventually crafted into Hartzler Family Dairy. That empty plot of land was selected on the north side of the city of Wooster. Here, the Hartlzers had electricity and a consistent water supply to help them vat-pasteurize and non-homogenize their milk. 

The problem, Hartzler says, was launching a product in a market where nobody knew you existed. He should know; he was the one sitting shotgun in a delivery truck with his grandfather as a young boy, hitting the mom and pop shops that wanted to carry their milk.

“It really is a miracle that it exists today,” Jace says, “We went through some very difficult and challenging times when you're trying to start a brand new product in the market.”

Six years later, in 1996, the Hartzlers opened up their own retail storefront in front of the milk processing plant. For the past three decades, milk consumption in the United States has been declining. However, per the USDA, milk per capita consumption leveled out in 2023 and 2024.

• 1996: 205 pounds of milk per capita consumption. 

• 2006: 185 pounds of milk per capita consumption. 

• 2016: 152 pounds of milk per capita consumption. 

• 2023 & 2024: 127 pounds of milk per capita consumption. 

In 2026, the USDA revised its milk production forecast upward to 234.5 billion pounds (from 225,868 billion pounds in 2024), reflecting higher expected milk per cow. Hartzler plans to take advantage of the current political climate and a market that is showing milk is back.

He expressed a belief that consumers are increasingly valuing local, minimally processed "superfoods."

“I'm really happy to see a lot of experts making the decisions,” Hartzler says. “Especially the health department administration really highlighting the benefits of dairy.”

Under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Trump administration has updated the 2025-30 Dietary Guidelines for Americans to drink whole milk. The administration also signed a bipartisan bill to allow schools to serve whole milk again. 

"I think when done correctly,” Hartzler adds, “when done as naturally as possible, milk is a superfood. It's incredibly healthy for you.”

Now, with its well-recognized logo plastered onto glass bottles across grocery stores in Northeast Ohio, Hartzler plans to cross $8 million in revenue over the next two years. Hartzler says that the company has been “hovering around that mark for the last couple years.”

Over the next 5-10 years, he wants them to reach $20 million in revenue. To do that, he wants to expand into Columbus and Cincinnati. The company is also reaching down into Kentucky and Pennsylvania. 

"The goal at the end of the day is to continue to put out a superior product,” Hartzler says, “not grow too fast to where you're reducing the quality of the product for the sake of growth."

But growing into the new markets won’t be easy. Operating as a small business, the company handles most of its own distribution due to the challenges of working with returnable glass bottles.

READ MORE: Longtime Cleveland Cheese-Manufacturer Miceli’s Dairy Ages Into a New Era

Those glass bottles are part of the process that drives the high-quality milk Hartzler produces. Hartzler explains that they chose a combination of older, more labor-intensive methods to get as close as to his grandfather's tagline.

Those methods are low-temperature vat pasteurization and non-homogenization (allowing cream to rise to the top). And Hartzler is doubling down on that process in the last few years; they added a new homogenizer and vats and updated their milk line to improve their efficiency. 

"I grew up drinking raw milk,” Hartzler says. “So being able to share that with the customer is excellent. It's a much longer labor-intensive process to do it the way we do, but we believe we have a better product for it."

They are also planning to invest more in their facility by expanding their cooler to handle the expected increase in demand. This cooler will also host the new milk flavors they plan to add, such as salted caramel, which launched earlier this year.

You won’t see fancy marketing done by Hartzler. They started with mom and pop shops and the growth came naturally, and it will continue that way into the new markets.

"We've really done zero marketing,” Hartzler says. “It's open word of mouth, and I think the focus on putting out a quality product that people love and want to share with other people that's unique has really served us well and it's taken a long time."

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