Shocked and stunned

Creamery news hard to digest

Originally published in the "2-26-09" issue.

By lunchtime on Monday, Fernbridge Tractor owner Dick Lindsay had gathered his employees in the breakroom to tell them the news he had heard only a few hours earlier.

“It doesn’t look good for the valley right now,” said a somber faced Lindsay. “We don’t know what happened but things can get scary.”

With 80 percent of his business reliant on the dairy industry, Lindsay like many others in the area were consumed by the “what ifs” this week.

Ryan Nilsen, a fifth generation Nilsen whose great-great grandfather Oscar started Nilsen Company in 1896, has managed the Ferndale store for five years, providing everything from hay to grain to fencing to dairy farmers. He heard about the creamery situation from his father, Denny.

“Everybody in agriculture is watching it to see what will happen,” he said. "Failure of the creamery would be devastating to everyone."

Creamery producer Jim Regli received a call from a creamery board member Monday morning while he was feeding calves at 6 am. He too was “shocked,” and couldn’t believe the message being relayed to him.

“We’re all waiting to see if we get our paycheck on the 28th,” he said. “If that doesn’t happen, we’ll be talking to the banks to try and get a line of credit.”

That conversation, however, could be a difficult one, considering the “dairy issues” over the past year, he said, referring to low milk prices and high feed costs.

“It’s been a tough year,” he noted. “No one has any extra money. Now we just wait and see.”

Crescent City’s Rumiano Cheese owner Baird Rumiano said his company has been doing business with Humboldt Creamery for 50 out of the company’s 90 years in business.

“We buy and sell milk from each other,” said Baird who insisted that he doesn't want to contribute to negativism when so little is known about the situation.

"They're a good group of dairymen who are passionate about the creamery,” he said. “They've survived bad times before - floods and other things - I just hope they'll be fine."

Rumiano producer and Ferndale dairyman Jim Becker noted the solidarity of the valley. “The milkshed is the milkshed,” he said. “We’re all in this together. Everyone in this whole county has a stake in this thing. I am a dairyman and this is dairy related. Yeah, we’re all affected.”

Even Cream City Cafe owner Larry Horn was talking about the creamery Tuesday afternoon, pointing to the array of Humboldt Creamery ice cream in his cold case.

“I just hope we can continue with this,” he said, asking, like many others, if there was “anything new” on the situation.