Pleasant Lane Farms

The creamery produces award-winning artisan farmstead cheeses with milk from their herd of dairy cows and sold through retail, foodservice, and through partners in the charitable food network.

Jason Frye reflected, “Pleasant Lane started working with Westmoreland Food Bank in 2020 as part of the USDA food box program, and since 2021, we’ve continued our relationship using PASS and LFPA funding for bi-monthly shipments to the food bank. We’ve started to produce and offer a wider variety of products as the food bank helps balance our production needs with our other customers and helps us ensure we have enough work to employ two full-time cheesemakers and three part-time packaging employees.” 

“This relationship has helped create more predictable demand for our products,” Jason continued. “Our work with the food bank has given us flexibility to shift production capacity exclusively to food bank products when demand may be temporarily low and we may have had excess milk. The sales to the food bank on PASS and LFPA have helped us avoid food waste, while allowing us to work with more local suppliers for the packaging and logistics requirements for our organization.”

Matty Tippit-Soto, Director of Warehouse Logistics for Westmoreland Food Bank, reflected, “The PASS and LFPA programs have had a huge impact on our ability to provide our neighbors with locally sourced, nutritious foods. When the opportunity to use these funding streams to partner with Pleasant Lane came about, we knew we couldn’t pass it up. It’s really a full circle moment to be able to support a local family and veteran owned business, increase the amount of food that the food bank has access to and is able to distribute, and provide our neighbors with quality local dairy products.”

Jason would go on to share, “Pleasant Lane is a veteran-owned and operated organization (Jason and Craig are also military veterans) so service is an important part of how we operate our business. We enjoy our work with Westmoreland Food Bank and the ability to connect our community with nutrient dense dairy products has been the best part of the relationship. It’s so gratifying when we receive thank you notes from neighbors showing their appreciation for our products that they have received at the food bank’s distribution or mobile pantries.”

“Needless to say, we would encourage other farms and local food companies to explore a relationship with their local food bank,” Jason would conclude. “For Pleasant Lane, it has helped buffer slower months and changes in consumer buying power related to inflation, while serving as a predictable source of income for our organization. We hope to be able to continue supporting our food bank and any needs it may have in the future.”