Production support for Up Close is brought to you by the University of Tennessee Video Production Center and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Thank you for watching.

Up close, I'm Frank Murphy, Colleen Cruise.

Betty grew up on her parent's dairy farm and got her degree in agricultural science at the University of Tennessee.

In her senior year, she won first prize in the Graves business competition, which gave her the seed money to relaunch the family's ice cream business in 2011.

At the Market Square Farmers Market.

Five years later, she and her husband opened the first Cruze farm pop up shop on Union Avenue, another pop up shop, a pizza barn and a permanent location on Gay Street soon followed.

Cruze Farm now has locations several in Morristown as well.

Tonight, we welcome Colleen Cruise Betty to up close Colleen, thank you for joining us.

Thank you.

It's delightful to have you here on up close.

And I correctly predicted that you'd wear red, so I did not.

I always wear red.

Well, all right.

So is this a fit All right.

So let's go back to your early days before you were born.

Your parents decide to continue a family tradition and buy a new farm in East Tennessee.

Is that right?

Like in the early eighties?

Yeah.

So my dad, he went to the Air Force.

Yeah.

And then he he actually had pictures of cows hanging up in his room at the Air Force.

That's how much he loves cows.

And specifically Jersey cows.

Were these, like, specific photographs of cows or just drawings of cows?

Photos of cows.

And he saved his money.

And when he got out of the Air Force, he he brought home from Salina, Kansas, a trailer of heifers to start his dairy farm.

All right.

Yeah.

No bulls, Just heifers.

Just heifers.

And he's a fourth generation dairy farmer.

Yeah, So I'm a fifth.

And his dream was to bottle milk, and his family didn't encourage him.

What did the previous generations do with their dairy cows?

They just milked cows and sold the milk.

Oh.

To dairies, Oh.

Bulk in bulk to in bulk somebody else who would then just mix it up with all the other milks and homogenized it and blah blah, blah.

And there was a lot of those dairies like mangere dairy and, and now there's really not any.

And so my dad had this dream and he really didn't start working on that dream.

He met my mom, and then even after they got married, they decided let's that's enough weddings over, courthouse wedding is done.

We got to get home and got to milk the cows.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

And really, on their wedding day.

On their wedding day, no honeymoon.

They came back, They milk the cows.

My dad actually saved a cow.

It was down with milk fever.

He saved his life, and my mom just swooned.

She was.

She fell in love.

She was your mom from a farming family?

Not at all.

No.

What's her background?

Well, when they met at the high school in Kingston Pike, and she was where she went to be, Peggy Fleming.

She was wearing a little ice skating dress and she never wore an ice skating dress again after they got married because it was farming.

It was just strictly you know, if you know anything about dairy farms, you know that the work never ends.

You know, it's a lot of dirt and muck and a lot of muck cows every day, twice a day, no matter the day, twice a day.

I mean, to me that you have to milk them twice a day.

Yes, you do.

Every morning, every evening at specific times.

Or to the cows.

Yeah.

So cows are very routine animals.

And they all come to the barn every day at the same time.

So they love a schedule.

And my dad didn't hate Daylight saving time.

Exactly.

No, they don't change for daylight saving thing.

They come just every day the same time.

So you said you didn't take any marketing classes.

You're an agriculture major.

You go to U.T., right?

Where did you go to high school?

I went to Carter High School.

Oh, right.

Okay.

Plains Hornets, right?

Yes.

So you go to U.T.

as an agricultural major, and at some point in your senior year, you decide, Well, I can try marketing, I suppose, and compete for a top marketing award and win with no experience.

Come on.

You must have had some.

Well, you know, my mom, she is a cheerleader.

Like she cheered my dad on to start ball and milk.

She cheered me on and she I guess she knew what I wanted to do, but more than I knew what I wanted to do, because I really didn't have a clue in college.

And she said, I think you'd really enjoy coming back to the farm.

And and I really did miss the farm when I lived at UT, I, I missed the.

When you had planned to strike out on your own and not go back home.

Originally, I didn't want to go back home.

But this also, I mean, jumping way ahead to the end, when you give a commencement address, your message to the students is it's okay to go back home.

So this is a lesson you learned it right out of college in 2011.

So tell us that.

Yeah, well, I think there's all this pressure to after college to go do something else and go to a different city and move away.

And and I didn't do that actually.

I went back to the farm and started working with my parents and continuing what they had worked on for, Oh, my goodness.

Since 1980 when they got married.

And I really appreciate all the work.

They took 31 years at that point in time.

Exactly.

And so I kind of picked up what they had, you know, there was a lot to learn from them, too.

My dad had so much knowledge about the dairy and making buttermilk and everything.

So I learned from my parents and and I really wanted to just continue their passion.

And your idea was there's excess milk that goes to waste or you don't get to what happened to the excess milk in those days.

Well, at that time, my parents were bottling some milk and then they were selling the rest for maybe maybe breaking and maybe losing money selling it.

So.

Bulk And you had a flashback to when the old farmer's market was over.

Where is town mall is you as a child would help your parents sell some ice cream and then the ice cream business went away until you were a senior in college?

Yeah, I grew up in that farmer's market and that was really home for me.

I spent more time there than at the farm, and I. I really missed it.

So winning when that business plan competition, the Grange business plan competition happened at UT.

I wrote a business plan called Cruze Farm Girl Ice Cream, and my dad encouraged me to call it, you know, girl to make it kind of mine.

And yeah, I won $5,000.

Yes.

And my parents were both surprised.

My dad, gosh, he was so proud.

And he was like, you know, I think you could do this.

Well, the professors at UT have been interviewed in the years since, and they didn't seem surprised.

They seemed impressed that you had a great idea and a great plan.

You had the milk you just had the idea was to freeze it in sweetness and sell it.

And one thing they said to me in that competition, they said, You need more of use like you need to.

Oh, so I would take your uniform and everyone should wear the same thing.

And just like, I don't know, they kind of gave me this advice.

Yeah, advice to make more of you like everyone.

And I like that I didn't know what that would end up becoming, but it kind of helped me with figuring out how to go well.

When you walk into the Cruz Farm store or any of the locations you already know what everyone is going to look like, you know?

So the first people I hired were my best friends.

Yeah.

And so you're still in school or you just graduated?

Yep.

Yep.

I'm just graduated, actually.

So the day I graduated, I didn't walk.

I wasn't sure I was actually going to walk.

That last probably chemistry class was really hard.

Dr. Hazari I called him on the phone and I was and I said, Dr. Z, tell me.

I passed.

And he said, You pass.

Of course you passed.

And I said, Yes.

I was turning, turning ice cream that day.

I'm going to call the market telling me you almost ruined everything.

Yeah.

No, no, it was great.

He was.

He helped me so much.

We talked about the chemistry of ice cream and he he really did give me good advice about my business.

That's excellent.

And so my girlfriends were helping me, and I said, I'm going to find some cute outfits to wear to market.

And I was at hammers and I found some gingham dresses and I bought them.

They were on clearance.

I bought all they had, but not like one or two or like all it like 30.

We were going to need them.

You're working and you know, so and they loved them.

And but the best part about it is when we were our gingham dresses to market.

At this point, the farmers market is has relocated to Market Square in the downtown.

Mm.

And customers would come up and ask us where we bought our gingham dress and I was just so glad to get people to come talk to us because when it's like 90 degrees outside and you're trying to sell milk, it's hard to get anyone to, you know, want to taste milk on a hot summer day.

But they ask where the dresses are from and we get to start conversations.

That's fantastic.

Yeah.

So in the course of all of this, you've now learned or are learning the hard way in many cases how to make ice cream, how to make buttermilk.

And I in the course of the preparation for this interview.

So basically in a span of minutes, I have learned more about buttermilk than I had known my entire life previous to this point.

That is actually butter free milk, that it's actually the liquid that is produced when you make butter over here, what's left over is the buttermilk and that it's like yogurt that you drink in me.

What else can you tell me about buttermilk and how you wrote 500 gallons?

I did.

Or in fact, Franken's buttermilk is honestly my favorite product.

We make It is.

It is.

I drink it almost every day.

I love buttermilk.

See if mentioned that those of us who eat yogurt would enjoy a good buttermilk.

Mary.

Yes, but you also said that, you know, if manage yogurt, I'm used to all the sweeteners and the flavors and the, you know, the raspberries and all the other stuff that they put in there.

This is just hardcore churned buttermilk.

Yes.

It would taste similar to like a plain yogurt with no sugar.

Okay.

I'm not ready yet.

You're not ready?

Oh, so you're right.

Everyone thinks I guess I don't know if it has a lot of fat, but it is what's left over after churning butter.

It doesn't have any fat.

And you drink from one side.

And when I'll.

Wherever the lipstick isn't, I'll take a sip.

How is it?

I mean, of course it's good.

You make good.

And you're Irish.

Irish people love butter.

Well, my wife, my mother and my wife make Irish soda bread.

Yes.

And buttermilk is that is the main ingredient, the only liquid.

I think it's fine now that you got in my head.

That yogurt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you can understand how.

How bad.

I mean, plain yogurt would taste.

This is.

This is bad.

This is not bad.

It's not.

It's not.

And it lasts a long time, and it's so good.

How do you know when it's spoils?

Was I supposed to shake it before we did?

We were supposed to shake a little bit, so I got a chunk of something.

Had a butterfly in there.

It's a different.

Yeah, it's.

It's different than the one.

It's.

Yeah, it's great.

It's, it's good for me.

It cures all sorts of things.

I like to put it on my face like a mask.

Are you serious?

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, you've got a nice complexion, so it must be.

It's the buttermilk.

It's helping me.

Yeah, I really do.

So I did ruin 500 gallons, and my dad cried.

And how did you ruin it?

I cried.

Just learned.

You forgot learning how to make ass.

I forgot to turn the agitator off.

But because what happens is, in the olden days, people would leave the remains of the butter liquid leftover after butter just out in the hot sun or hot summer, and it would turn to buttermilk itself.

But if you want to make it in the winter, you have to add bacteria, etc.

and you have to warm it.

You have that.

They must have put it in front of like the fire.

Something to do that because you've got to culture it.

They want culture when it's cold.

But yes, so our ancestors here in the South, I mean they made a lot of buttermilk.

I think all milk turn to buttermilk without refrigeration.

Right.

So that's the difference when we're talking about sweet milk.

Yes.

Is when I grew up in New York, the man would come and put leave bottles of milk on the back porch.

But it was all what you would call sweet milk.

Yeah, that's true.

He had a little refrigerator box or not mean, what would you call it?

Just a insulated box in the back porch.

And a milk is sweet.

Milk is naturally very sweet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like we have our whole milk, which is like, what is it based on what the cows eat?

Because, I mean, I know, like, certain butters, like if you get Irish butter, it is a vivid yellow because of what the cows eat.

It changes color throughout the course of the year.

Yes, it is more yellow in the spring and we don't homogenize our milk.

So the cream rises to the top.

So you can see exactly how much cream you're getting.

Oh, okay.

So do you shake it then, for you need to shake it before you drink it.

So pasteurized means heated.

Heated.

Killed the germs.

Yep.

Exactly.

Louis Pasteur.

Yep.

But homogenized means homogeneous.

It's all the same throughout.

Yes.

So since we don't homogenize any of our.

Should I have something?

You should.

Because it is sweet milk.

I want you.

Let me have your other.

All right?

Okay.

So this is going to be sweet milk.

Let's see.

I'm sure it's delicious.

I love milk.

I pretzels and milk is one of my favorite bedtime snacks.

Hmm.

Well, that's fine.

Milk.

Good.

I This is my first time eating on the show or drinking on the show, but I think we can start a new segment.

So do you prefer the plain milk, or do you like chocolate milk?

Well, everybody likes chocolate milk.

They do like chocolate.

I mean, you know, I used to.

Yeah, I would.

It's easy to convince people to drink.

I want to get the blender and the spoonfuls of Nestlé's Quik and all the things and make myself milkshakes at home.

And I worked in an ice cream store when I was in high school.

And I've always loved dairy products.

I mean, I just I love them.

So this is an easy interview for me to talk to you about this.

Now, when you're milking cows, how many are we talking about?

How many?

Because you have to milk every day.

So we milk about 80.

My husband out in our herd and my dad has a herd of 20.

Oh, and he milks every day twice a day too.

So he was milking cows today?

Yeah.

So my dad's 81.

He's a very healthy 81 year old man who likes cows every day.

Yeah.

All right, so now you've won this award.

$5,000.

You, as a child had helped your parents sell the ice cream that they churned.

They stopped churning their ice cream.

Part of your business plan says we still have the churning machine at home or in the farm, in the barn.

What?

It did take us to the next step, because my first recollection of you is is twofold, is at the International Biscuit Festival.

Okay, we met there, someone introduced us.

And also when you had that pop up shop on union Avenue, because I would go downtown to do comedy, improv and park in the Locust Garage.

And the line at the first cruise farm pop up was just all the way wrapping around from the store up to Market Square yet.

So okay, so going back so I won the $5,000 and what you know what I bought with that?

I do but you tell me.

I mean, I thought I thought I'd buy a palette of ice cream pies that were branded crazy Farm Girl.

And my dad started helping me turn ice containers with paper containers, and he started helping me make ice cream.

He taught me how to make ice cream.

We were using it.

It was very rich.

Ice cream, 60% fat with egg yolks.

So we were like, separated, like, Oh, yeah.

So bringing tons and tons of eggs and it was it was good.

I had I had good help.

I had a Japanese interning me Yoko, who came to live with me.

That was pretty ingenious to call Japan after some natural disaster that they had.

Well, yeah, I was in the dairy working and I was like, I really need help.

And I heard about that.

And I had actually been in Japan in high school and always wanted to go back, so I thought maybe I could find someone whose dairy farm, you know, from a dairy farm maybe, and she wasn't.

But she was very interested in dairying and still has an interest.

So she had several interns.

We did have several interns.

And so we started making ice cream and selling it at the farmer's market, at Market Square and also at Three Rivers Market and other local shops.

And we did that for several years.

I also ended up meeting a guy named Keith at the Bistro in K Street, and I hired him to be my cook in the food truck.

Right.

You had.

But you had something else in mind, right?

According to one of these interviews I read with you is your mom said, go out and meet some guys.

She did go on first dates.

She told me to go into in four states.

But you made it to number seven.

I made it to seven and met your husband.

I did?

Yeah.

And we became best friends soon after we met.

He was going back to India to visit family at home.

And by the way, using buttermilk and a lot of recipes.

I love Indian food.

It didn't occur to me that I'm eating buttermilk and Indian food.

Well, yeah, his family loves dairy.

I think India might be butter chicken.

I love butter, butter, chicken.

Everybody loves butter.

I think India consumes more dairy than any country in the world.

One of the first things he told me was how much he loved milk.

So yeah, so he had no farming background, but he knows a lot more about dairy farming now than I do.

So yeah, well, because you're still on them.

Mostly on the marketing side.

You're the face of the business.

Yeah, I do love it.

I do a lot of the marketing too.

Yeah.

So.

Okay, so $5,000 about the to start selling ice cream.

And then after that, I met and we end up getting married and we actually had an Indian wedding.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

We had a combination recommendation, the Methodist meeting and Indian wedding in the same day.

And then we were hoping to have it on the same day.

Indian weddings take long.

Well, it did take a couple of days, but we did have our ceremonies on the same day.

All right.

In Riverdale, in our little community on French Broad River.

That's fantastic.

Yeah.

They they paraded down the what was it, the Wingrove pike during the Indian parade, the drums, the it was.

And your dad took to him so he could see that, you know, you could addition to the family business.

Well, I don't I don't know if my dad was thinking that, but my dad is he loves me so much that he he he participated in the wedding.

My mom honestly fell in love with him again at our wedding because she was she couldn't believe that this East Tennessee dairy farmer was able to.

Yeah.

You know, go, you know, take his daughter to this Indian wedding that was so different from anything that he's ever experienced.

Wow.

Yeah.

Very cool.

Now, in the course of this, you know, you've started raising a family of your own.

You live on the farm and you're expanding the business step by step by step, ultimately getting to the permanent store on gay streets.

You know, a couple more pop ups downtown.

Yeah.

But in the meantime, you expand with pizza and everything else.

Take us through that, that progression.

We're still at pop up shop downtown on Gay Street.

And then what it was, it was a very slow progression.

The first pop up, I learned so much I didn't know how to run a shop.

I was born on Union Avenue.

On Union.

I was expecting our second child and I. I knew that we needed to open an ice cream shop.

I really didn't know how to, but I figured if we just did it, we would learn and that's what we did.

So that's the advantage of the pop up shop because it's a temporary location.

Okay, We had a ten week lease that was going to look bad at you when it closes because you announced that from day one.

Exactly.

So and we were doing the hand-dipped ice cream and we learned that it was really hard to serve all our customers, that we couldn't actually get through the line before closing.

So we switched to soft serve.

And you know how hard because you worked it was a Baskin Robbins.

Yeah.

And so, Oh, yeah, I got them.

I go, everything goes sour ice cream stains all the way up until our employees would complain about their answer.

Yeah, it hurts.

Yeah.

So we closed that and I started thinking like, what can we do to improve it?

And I saw the soft serve ice cream truck for sale on eBay.

And I bought it and I told Angie, I need you to learn how to make homemade soft serve ice cream and drive a truck and drive a truck.

And he.

I believe he can do it.

Do you think it's really smart?

And you know what he figured I figured out a recipe, lots of trial and error, and he figured out how to make self-serve.

And so we opened our second pop up with self-serve.

And that has been continued to be your ice cream product.

Yes.

But you also went into pizza and now you've got locations in Super Bowl, Morristown.

Yeah.

East Knoxville and of course, downtown.

What how did that I mean, obviously pizza has cheese.

Yes.

Comes from cows.

Take a well he he loves food.

He's very passionate about food and he was a chef when he met him.

We've got to remember.

Well, he he was a cook and he was going to go to law school.

And I talked him out of law school and told him he should just follow his passion for food.

Every time you have to pay a lawyer, do you think, oh, I should let him go?

Absolutely.

How did you know?

I just turned two together.

I doing I tell him all the time.

I was like, why didn't why did I talk you out of law school?

That would have been really convenient.

But, you know, it's okay.

He followed his passion, which is more important.

And so, yeah, we opened the pizza place.

We were trying to find what kind of food.

And at the farmer's market, we always had a different food every summer.

One summer we did do Indian food, which was really fun.

But our kids love pizza, so like, really, it was our kids.

He decided what we were going to make, which is pizza.

And you know, pizza and ice cream is a great combination.

It is a dinner dessert.

I love it.

Yes.

So so we have a one pizza restaurant.

I'm not sure if we'll ever do another one, but we have really enjoyed it.

So but also, I mean, you work the social media angles quite well as as Crew's Farm Girl and all the other combinations with each store.

But one of these guys, well-known on social media shows up and does is won by pizza review for Barstool Sports at your place.

Yes.

And that helped him and I think he could have given you a higher rating, but he gave us a good rating compared to you know what?

He don't really rate.

Yeah.

One of our managers, Tex, texted us and said this guy's here.

Like, no one really knew who he was, but they figured it out when we pulled out a camera.

And so they looked him up.

But he had a good time.

Yeah.

And it helped your business to write.

It did?

Yeah.

You're able to work that.

A lot of people showed up after he came.

Now, one thing that I've seen on your social media is the phrase milk drop off and I don't really understand what that means.

And I'm sure you can explain it because your whole job is selling the excess milk and that's nothing I'm a little baffled by because you seem to be unable to anticipate whether you're going to have too much milk or too little milk.

Why is that?

Well, you never know what the demand will be.

So, like the most recent drop off was because it snowed.

Oh, and so milk drop off means you drive to a place with your trucks full of milk and then give it away.

So, yeah, we we sell it for a reduced price and we sell it online to preorders and.

Oh, it's, I love those, those are so much fun because I get to see customers face to face.

It kind of feels like a farmer's market again.

And, and our customers love it.

They appreciate it.

I mean, we some of them about 20 gallons a person like they really stocked up on milk.

Oh, well, because the price was good.

They were they were going, oh, so it does freeze Well well, I wouldn't say it freezes.

Well but they but it's okay, but it will freeze.

I mean I've frozen eggnog in the past too, so I could have it in the summer.

Yeah.

Not bad.

It's.

It works.

It's okay.

So you've moved the product, but most of your clientele, I guess you when you went to and met your husband, you were selling milk to the restaurant where he worked so that they would use it in their recipes.

So you have a lot of that kind of direct business to restaurants?

We do.

And the direct to the customers is through the stores.

Yes, exactly.

And also we sell to like Three Rivers Market and Whole Foods.

And that makes sense because Three Rivers Market is known for its locally sourced ingredients.

So it's like, you know, you and the cheese from down in Athens or Sweetwater River it's from and all those kind of things.

So when you gave the commencement address about family business, take us back to that.

You know, it was how do you live that advice in your own life?

Colleen Oh, gosh.

Well, yeah, my advice was that it's okay to go home, that you you don't have to keep searching for something better out there that, you know, look at where you came from.

Oh, gosh, I recently went to high school and I told the high schoolers the same thing.

I said, like you all have, your roots are here.

And there's so many people here that will support you.

And I have got to feel that and see that in Knoxville.

Knoxville has really supported our our business.

And I don't think Chris Farm would would work just in any location like this is this is home and plus a dairy farm.

You can't really up and move a dairy farm very easily and you have no intention of moving it.

You made it now what's it called?

Forever.

Yeah.

So, yeah, my parents put a conservation easement on it and called it a farm forever because my dad actually grew up in the forks of the river, which is now an industrial park.

So he.

He would go down and encourage machines over there now.

Yeah, exactly.

And he would take me there as a child and show me like where the farm was and cry because he missed his home place.

And he says, Wait, he cries.

When you were in the buttermilk.

Well, this is he and I are just we are fiddlers.

And so, yeah, we do.

Okay.

So your advice then is I guess really it's the end of the Wizard of Oz, too.

You know, there's no place like place like you can look everywhere, but you can.

Yeah, why not?

Why gave up on this opportunity when you've got a head start right at home and all the people who you don't realize who will support you.

Like whenever I open a shop and people come the first day, I'm always surprised like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe it.

Like, I feel so thankful that that people will come support us because it feels risky and you're putting yourself out there when you open a shop.

And then when people show up, you're just so thankful and appreciative.

And when you really look at who those people are, you build them.

You're like, Oh, those are my neighbors.

And I think that's part of the reason for your success, is people appreciate that when they come in to cruise farm stores.

Well, Colleen, I appreciate you for being here.

And also get me to try buttermilk and I'll I'll drink some more of it.

I promise.

I'll give it to you.

All right.

It's good.

I mean, shake it a little more before we sign off.

But thanks again for being here.

And what's next for cruise farms?

Oh, gosh.

Well, we have just a lot of excellent people helping us right now.

We just want to take good care of them.

So anything we can do to just take good care of our people, we will.

All right.

We appreciate it.

Colleen, thank you for watching.

Up close, I'm Frank Murphy.