(energetic music) (energetic music) - Welcome to "A Shot of AG."

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

What is the one thing every single human being agrees on?

That cheese is good.

That's right.

Today, we're gonna be talking with Beth Marcoot.

How you doing, Beth?

- I'm well.

How are you?

- You are a dairy farmer.

- That's correct.

- Gotcha.

And you've done that your whole life?

- I grew up on our current family farm.

Always did chores with my family.

Showed cows through 4-H and FFA.

And then my parents had four girls.

And growing up on the farm, they always encouraged us to leave the farm, get our education, and not be dairy farmers, just because it's something that you have to do every single day.

And so that's what I did.

And my older sister, Amy, we are both back at the farm now.

So, we both left for 10 years.

- [Rob] Oh.

- We both have our degrees from the University of Illinois.

- Oh, time.

We need a U of I clock, because honestly, you guys mention it within a minute of being on the show.

"Oh, I went to the U of I."

But, you're okay because where'd you go after that?

- I have my master's from SIU Carbondale.

(Rob rings bell) (Beth laughs) - Go Salukis.

- [Rob] Go Salukis.

- That's right.

(Rob laughs) And Amy has her master's degree from Eastern Illinois University in counseling.

So, our degree path and our career was not anything with animal science, food manufacturing, agriculture.

And so we were clearly on the path to do something else besides coming back to the farm.

It was about 2007 when my parents started having conversations about what's the next step with the farm.

My dad was in his mid fifties at that time, so good to think about it.

And we had options.

We could go really big, if anybody wanted to come back.

We could sell out.

Then that's always an option.

Not an easy one.

Or we could do something to try to add more value to our cow's milk, so.

- Well, at that time, dairy was not good, right?

- Yeah.

Yeah, that's correct.

Correct.

- Yeah.

- Yep.

I think the nineties dairy was good, and then it's been a little bit volatile since.

- I mean, was there that discussion?

It's like, "Hey, you know, it's been a good run.

Maybe we should wrap it up?"

- Yeah, I mean, there's always that discussion because we still have choices, so.

But we felt that it was very important to keep going, not only for our family, but for being a voice in agriculture, and providing experiences to people to know about agriculture.

And so we wanted to figure out how to do it, so.

- [Rob] You and your sister?

- My older sister and I, yes.

- So, at this time, when you're talking about this, you're coming back, the two of you?

- Yes.

But, we are already doing other things.

She actually lived overseas for a year.

I was starting my master's degree in Carbondale.

And so we needed to do those things in our life to be able to come back, and so.

- Do you think that's important than just coming back to a farm?

- I think the more experiences people get makes them wiser and be able to make decisions differently with a little bit more experience outside your own scope, so yeah.

- [Rob] Okay.

- Yeah.

- So, as you're having this discussion, at this time, were you just a dairy?

- Yes.

So, we were just selling to the local co-op.

They would come and pick up our milk every other day.

- [Rob] Is that Prairie Farms?

- Yes.

(Rob rings bell) (Beth laughs) And so that's what we were doing then, so.

What's unique about us is that we have Jersey cows.

And Jersey cows are known for having higher butter fat and protein.

So, whenever you taste the cheese, it will be very creamy 'cause our cheese is a full-fat cheese, so.

- So, the people that don't really know.

So, what, Holsteins, are they the best producers?

- Yeah, so, Chick-fil-A cows, the black and white Holsteins, they are really good at producing a lot of volume.

Jerseys are shorter.

They're brown.

We also joke.

- [Rob] They're prettier.

- They are.

They are.

We also joke that the reason why Marcoots have Jerseys is because nobody's over the height of five, three, and so jerseys just fit our family.

- How tall are you?

- Five, three.

- Okay, you're the tallest.

- Everybody's five, three.

It's like the ceiling stopped at five, three.

Nobody else grew.

- Oh, okay.

- Yes.

- Alright.

You can always wear heels.

- Yeah, but that's challenging.

- But when you sell milk, it's on volume, but it's also on the butter fat?

- So, in the dairy world, we call that components.

- [Rob] Okay.

- So that's butter fat and protein.

So, our butter fat on our average is going to be about 5%.

Our protein's gonna be at about four.

A Holstein cow average is probably gonna be about 3% fat.

And just to give a reference, a gallon of whole milk is around 3% fat.

2% is 2% fat, et cetera.

So, when we send our milk to the co-op, they can make cheese, butter, ice cream with that extra fat and protein.

- When I'm at a restaurant, or if I'm eating with somebody and they order a steak well-done, it hurts my heart.

- Oh, absolutely.

- When you see people in a grocery store buying skim milk, does it hurts your heart?

- Yeah, my dad told us that if we ever bought skim milk and had it in our house, he would never come and visit us.

- [Rob] Oh.

- So, it was pretty serious.

- My dad used to say, "Oh, that's what we used to feed the pigs."

- That too.

(Rob and Beth laugh) - Okay, so you and your sister.

Now, how do I ask this?

You and your sister did you, are you copacetic?

Was there any concern with you two coming together and coming back to the dairy at the same time?

- Absolutely.

We promised, we shook that we would never work together ever, ever, ever.

And here's the story.

- [Rob] When, like the day before?

- No, no, no.

Years, years, years before.

We were actually roommates in college as well.

We had a friend who had a house and so we all lived together.

And our friend was living or working in Champaign after she graduated.

And we decided it'd be really great to help her fix up her house.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And that's not, I don't.

The construction's not my thing.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And so, Amy was doing something that I'm like, "You're gonna hurt yourself.

I don't think you could do this."

She was working with a SAWZALL.

- [Rob] This is your sister?

- Yeah, my sister.

And she's like, "I got it."

Being a very much older sister.

- Of course, we're just hearing one side of this, Amy.

- This is the real story.

She will misremember.

(Rob laughs) And I said, "No, do it this way."

She's like, "I'm gonna do it my way."

And so she had the SAWZALL, and she was on a ladder, and she did it her way, and she fell back, and then she fell down to the ground.

It was the funniest thing ever.

She was safe.

- Sounds like it serves her right.

- Absolutely.

She's not here to defend herself, so this is it.

So at that moment, she was very angry with me for laughing at her.

- [Rob] Really?

Shocker.

- Yeah.

Shocker.

I know.

And so she said, "You promise me that we will never go into business together."

And I laughed and said, "No problem" and we shook on it.

We shook on it.

- And, now here you are.

- Yeah.

So be careful of the nevers, right?

Like, that's life lesson.

- "Only a Sith deals in absolutes."

- Sure.

- Star Wars reference.

Okay.

Alright.

So you two, you decided to come back.

It was a dairy.

- Mm-hmm.

- When did the creamery start?

- So, we opened the creamery, we started building in 2009.

And then we opened the creamery in June, 2010.

So this June, June, 2025, will be 15 years.

It seems like it's, how can it be 15 years?

And then it's seems like, oh yeah.

We've earned every minute of that too.

- Well now, because, all right, dairies a tough business.

Not just the the physical labor and every day, but the prices.

So, a lot of the smaller, which you guys aren't small, but, you know, you're not a 5,000 head dairy.

- Right, right.

- A lot of the smaller ones go, "Hey, how can we add value to it rather than just sending it to the co-op?"

- Mm-hmm.

- So, now you are making more by actually taking your milk and producing, what?

- Cheese.

So, we first started off with our artisan and farmstead cheeses, which means that we have control from what the cows eat, all the way to the way that it's produced, to all the way to it's distributed.

And so, which is good, that's good and has challenges too.

One's not better than the other.

And so currently we make a little over 20 different kinds of cheeses.

- Yeah, and that's like, I mean, literally, this is like what you would get in a grocery store type of stuff.

- Yes.

So, cheese curds are one of our best sellers.

We make those fresh every week.

And then our other cheeses, like Gouda, white cheddar, smoked.

- [Rob] Do they squeak?

- They do.

So room temperature, then they'll squeak some more.

They don't do that whenever it's cold, so.

- Oh, okay.

I'm gonna, because this smells, I'm a Gouda guy, right?

And it smells phenomenal.

What two types do we have on here?

- So smoked Gouda, and this is white cheddar.

If you're gonna try both, try white cheddar first and then smoked Gouda.

Otherwise, you're white cheddar will smell like, tastes like smoked Gouda.

- Okay, I'm gonna try a little piece because I want a bigger piece of the Gouda.

- Sure.

Yes.

- Okay.

- You really know what you're doing.

I could see that you're really taking in every single one of those cheddar notes.

That was a cheese prayer, wasn't it?

- It's delicious.

- Thank you.

- Yeah.

- Thank you.

- All right, do you guys want to try the white first?

We feed them every once in a while.

- I've heard.

- Honestly, I would probably not buy white, but I would buy that.

That's fantastic.

- Yeah.

- Give her a try.

Now we got Don.

Of course, we got food here, Don would show up.

(Rob and Beth laugh) - Mm.

- So, the creaminess is part of the Jersey cow milk.

- Don't go anywhere, Don.

We got to try number two.

All right, I'll take a big piece of the Gouda.

(Rob inhales) Oh, the smell.

- It has a bacony flavor.

- Shh.

(Beth laughs) - Mm-hmm.

- That's delicious.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

Thank you, Don.

That is, it's a little more smoke than I would say, which I love, than you get with the Gouda.

This makes Tillamook taste like swill.

(Beth laughs) - Nice.

(Rob laughs) Are you gonna get emails about that?

- Bring 'em on.

I mean, in all serious, that's fantastic.

- Yeah, thank you.

- That might, I mean, I don't want to say this because it sounds like I'm just making it up, but I think that's like the best Gouda I've ever had, smoked Gouda I've ever had.

- Thank you.

Our Gouda is one of our best-selling cheeses, and so, and it has been for a long time, so.

- [Rob] Mm-hmm.

- You know what people say about Gouda?

- What do they say?

- They say it's "Good-a."

- Oh shoot.

I'm glad they couldn't see that.

Do you want the white or the Gouda?

- [Person Off-Camera] The Gouda.

- The Gouda.

Okay.

I want to give you a good piece.

(Beth laughs) It's like the sea lions in.

(Rob and Beth laugh) Okay, so you have a dairy, you know how to milk cows.

Learning how to turn it into other stuff like this, how do you learn that?

- A lot of it is you just jump in and do it.

A lot of it's trial and error.

And we also have had some training with Peter Dixon.

He's from Vermont.

He is a world renowned cheese maker.

He came out and did our, helped us with our first batches of cheese.

And then what's interesting about cheese and how we raise our cows and manage them, they're on grass for the time of year where we could pasture raise them.

So, the chemistry of the milk will change all throughout the year.

And you need to adjust the recipe depending on what the milk is.

- [Rob] You can do that?

- Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Whether, so like right now, like the cheese is very, has a white hue.

But, as we get further into spring, the beta-carotene from the grass, fresh grass will pass through the milk, and it'll make the milk a little bit more yellow, so you'll see it in a yellow hue more than like a white standard.

We don't put like a dye in our cheese to make it yellow or orange.

Ours is just what the color of the milk is, and that will change throughout the year.

- Well, that's good.

I think Bobby Kennedy's gonna stop all that anyway.

- Yeah.

- You can put what, red number 9 or whatever in there.

- Yeah, well, cheese makers will put annatto, which is a yellow coloring, so.

- How about that Velveeta?

- Oil, that has a place for people.

It serves a purpose, right?

- [Rob] Not really.

- Okay.

(Beth laughs) - A slice of Velveeta, cold slice of Velveeta on apple pie is delicious.

- You do like that.

We've had people use some of our aged cheddar to put in apple pie crust and they say that.

- [Rob] Oh, in the crust?

- Yeah, it's a thing, apparently.

- Huh?

Okay.

Tell me about the, what's an aging cave?

- So, whenever we built the creamery, whenever you make cheese, you have to have an aging room.

A lot of people will build an above ground walk-in cooler to age it at the right temperature and humidity.

We saw whenever we were building the creamery a book.

And in this book was a diagram of a manmade Swiss cave.

Our family came from Switzerland in 1840, and they brought a Jersey calf with them.

- [Rob] Oh really?

- And so that's why we're seven generations of Jerseys.

So we thought, hey, let's build a manmade Swiss cave just to have a throwback to our heritage.

- [Rob] How do you build a cave?

- Well, it's a underground concrete bunker.

- [Rob] Oh.

- With about eight feet of dirt on top of it, so it will naturally cool.

It naturally keeps it humid.

- [Rob] Deep one.

Okay.

- Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So that's the place to go in a bad storm.

- Or, you know, if everything goes wrong.

- That's right.

- I buried a school bus in my backyard just in case.

- That's actually really smart.

- It's not eight foot, so, yeah.

You guys might be better.

- Maybe.

You could come on.

We'll invite you.

- Sweet.

(Rob and Beth laugh) - So, then with that, I mean the wheels.

What is making a wheel of cheese?

How's that different than this?

- So, in cheese making, you could have blocks or wheels.

So, whenever we do a wheel of cheese, we call them hoops.

So, think of like a strainer or a colander.

And we put the small little cheese curds all packed in together and we want to stack that on top of each other, or put it in the cheese press to expel as much whey as possible.

And then overnight.

- [Rob] No whey.

- No whey.

Whey.

- No whey.

- Yeah.

(Rob and Beth laugh) Then over time, the pH drops a little bit, and those little cheese curds will knit back together and make a cheese block or a cheese wheel.

The wheels we age in our cheese cave, it's on ash wood.

It's the only wood that.

- [Rob] Even that matters?

- Oh yeah.

- Huh.

- It's a hard wood, so that's really important in aging cheese.

But it also won't, the cheese won't absorb the odor of whatever wood that is, so ash is very hard.

- I think one of literally, the second show we've ever done here of "A Shot of AG," we had a gal that brought in, she did a wheel of cheese.

And that's a dense little creature there.

I couldn't believe how heavy they are.

- Yeah, so we could do wheels of cheese that are when after they age, they're about five pounds, or about 12 to 15 pounds.

It just depends on the size of hoop that you get for that, so.

- Mm-hmm.

So, okay, so, you've got the cheese, you got the wheels.

(Rob laughs) How did, tell me the story behind the dog treats.

- Sure.

So, over the years we created different brands because part of being a small dairy is sustainability in all the ways.

And so one of them is dog treats.

We just learned and keep tracking with different parts of the industries.

And the pet world has just exploded with the way that people view their pets.

They're part of their family.

- [Rob] They're not afraid to spend money, are they?

- Not afraid to spend money.

And so we started with our very first product called Cheesy Chompers.

It's a dehydrated cheese treat.

It looks like a Cheerio, so it has a hole in the middle of that.

And so we started with that.

And then we expanded to making cheese bites, which is cheese curds for dogs.

Great for training or like a pill-pop like saver.

- [Rob] Oh yeah.

- And then we also do dog ice cream, which is our best-selling.

- What'd you just say?

- Dog ice cream.

- Dog ice cream?

- Yes.

- What is different about dog ice cream compared to ice cream?

- Well, for us, it's real ice cream.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And it's different flavors, but it's human-grade ice cream.

So, you could eat it.

Your dog could eat it.

So the flavors we have in that is.

- It's like "Roadkill," "My Own Butt."

- You're thinking of like the farm dogs we grew up with.

- Yeah.

- But, you know, peanut butter and banana.

There's a vanilla.

There's a cheddar bacon.

- [Rob] Chocolate?

- No, no.

Dogs can't have chocolate.

- They can have a little bit.

- A little bit.

And then pumpkin crunch.

So pumpkin and graham cracker.

- [Rob] Oh, okay.

- Yeah.

- And like how does that, like a little bar or what?

- It's in a little three-ounce cup.

So you just pop that off and then feed it to them.

And it's ready-to-serve - And people, I don't mean to knock your product, but I would never buy ice cream for my dog.

- I know.

I know.

(Rob laughs) In the pet world it's called the "celebration" category.

And a lot of people like have started celebrating their dog's birthdays or whatever, so.

- So, do you make these, these treats?

You guys actually, again, you've learned how to make them.

- Yep.

So, we manufacture them at the creamery.

So, yes.

- Do you make ice cream ice cream?

- Mm-hmm, yep.

For humans, yes, yes.

- Is it good?

- Yes.

- What is the number one flavor?

- Oh, let's see.

"Mudslide."

That is chocolate ice cream with Oreos and espresso.

That's a really popular one, yes.

- [Rob] Oh, okay.

- Strawberry cheesecake.

- [Rob] Okay.

- You've got your classic vanilla chocolate.

We really like butter brickle.

So vanilla ice cream with butter pecan flavoring.

And then Heath bars inside it.

- [Rob] Ah, that's good.

- So, that's pretty good.

- [Rob] The cookie dough.

- Cookie dough, of course.

Birthday cake.

- Do you have the weird names to them?

- We're a little bit too tired to come up with weird names.

- [Rob] Okay.

- So I mean, we could get your opinion on it.

- I would love to have a flavor named after me.

- We'll do a shark one.

- "Rocky Rob Sharkey."

- Yes.

Okay.

- I don't know.

We'll come up with something better than that.

- Yes.

Let's do it.

- So out of all the stuff that you are making with the milk that you're producing, like, is there a bread and butter something that you're like, oh, that's always gonna sell well?

- Cheese is that.

We also have a product we call Extreme Ice, and we take the whey off of our cheese make, and then we put fruit with that.

And that's really great.

Anybody who needs protein, extra protein, we do that.

Our cheese is always going to be our bread and butter.

And then also just people being able to come out and visit us at the creamery.

- [Rob] You allow that?

- Oh yes.

We set up the creamery for tours.

So glass windows, people could watch us make cheese.

We do a lot of tours.

About in 2017, we built a robot barn, so our cows are milked with robotic milkers.

So people get to see the cows being milked, and see the cows eating, laying in the free stall barn, whatever.

- So, we've interviewed a lot of people that went robotic.

I would say a third of them don't like it or went back.

What's your guys thoughts?

- We love it.

- Okay, that's the other two thirds.

They absolutely love it, yeah.

- Yeah.

My dad will always say it's a lot easier to train a first time cow in the robot than it was to get her into the parlor.

- It's amazing to watch the way.

- I never get tired of it.

- Yeah, "That's what I want.

I'm gonna wash it, and I'm gonna milk it, and on with the day."

- Yeah.

And a lot of people ask, well, how do the cows know to go there?

And I say, well, it's very simple.

They have a basic need of being milked, and so we know where to go to the refrigerator to get the food that we need to to eat.

- [Rob] Do you feed them when they come in?

- They get some feed in there, yeah.

- We visited one up in Michigan.

And when we were standing there, she's like, well, they kept kicking them out.

And we're like, why?

And she's like, 'cause we're here.

They're curious.

So they're just coming through.

- Yeah.

Jerseys are extra curious.

And so we'll have them, they'll finish in one robot, and then they'll go to the next, and they'll keep trying to circle 'cause they're trying to see if there's any snacks left over, so.

- Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Well, if people want to find out more about Marcoot Dairy, where?

And oh, I'm sorry.

Marcoot Jersey Creamery.

- Yeah.

- Where would they go?

- So, our website is MarcootJerseyCreamery.com.

And then we're also on Facebook and Instagram.

Not so much on TikTok quite yet.

- [Rob] Not yet.

- Not yet.

- They like the dairy farmers, TikTok does.

Yeah.

But, I mean, it might be all gone too by the time this airs.

(Rob and Beth laugh) Okay, so what advice would you have for somebody that is maybe not even just farming or dairy, that is thinking about a family business, working with family members?

You guys have made it work.

What advice would you give them?

- I think it's really important 'cause in a family business it feels like just the stakes are really high because we're all very interdependent.

So, my choices affects my sister, my dad.

It affects my children.

And so I think that it's very important to one, believe the best about people and about your family, even if you don't agree with them.

And it's also just really important for everybody to have specific roles and to trust somebody in those roles.

- Ah, that's probably the hard part, isn't it?

- That's really hard, especially if you grew up together and you've worked together, you know the intricacies of things.

- And if you've seen your sister fall off a ladder, it's hard to trust someone after that.

- Well, then there's that.

(Rob and Beth laugh) - Do you hope it goes on to the eighth generation?

- You know what?

I really think that I will offer to my children the same thing my parents did.

Is that, we want you to go and experience the world and be who you are created to be.

And if that's coming back to the farm, we want to build this so that you can come back.

But we don't want to say that they have to.

We want to give them that choice.

- I will say out of all the interviews we've done, the have-tos, the people that feel obligated, it doesn't work well, so it has to be a choice.

And I'm glad that you and your sister have decided that.

Beth Marcoot, from Marcoot Jersey Creamery.

Thank you for being on our show.

I know it was a long drive up there from Greenville, so, thank you for that.

And I also want to thank you for what you're doing for agriculture.

Not every dairy farm was able to transition into the value-added products.

You guys have done it and done an amazing job.

You're also a very good voice and face for agriculture.

You make a farmer like myself look good.

When people see agriculture, like the way you're doing it, it helps my farm too, so I want to thank you for that.

- Oh yeah.

Thank you.

- All right, the Gouda.

We'll just end like this.

(Beth laughs) (energetic music) (energetic music) (energetic music) If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to explore more of our local content.

You can connect with us on our social media platforms, visit our website, or download and watch the free PBS app.

We can't wait to see you next time, on "A Shot of AG."