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Your tour of this York County, Pennsylvania dairy farm includes a scoop of the farm's own ice cream
by Rebecca Klein
Meet a cow face to face. Watch a robot in action. Indulge in some incredible ice cream. It’s an easy sell to coax the kids into the car for a day trip to Hope Acres, a family-owned, robotic dairy farm in York County, Pennsylvania. To prepare our 2-year-old for the hour-and-change drive, we simply informed him we were visiting an “ice cream farm.”
The farm tour takes you through what seems like the Ritz Carlton for cows. The cows live in a climate-controlled barn, complete with a rubberized floor to relieve joint stress, a mechanical back-scratcher, and elevated rubber waterbeds covered with naturally absorbent peanut shells. There’s even maid service – an automated machine runs along a track, sweeping up manure.
Why the luxury? A happy cow produces more milk, explains Aaron Heindel, the farm’s president and our tour guide.
The pampered herd may not get a chocolate chip cookie on their pillows before bedtime, but they do receive “cow cookies” – oat and cornmeal pellets – upon entering the robotic milking station. Once lured inside, the robot’s laser sensors read the cow’s vital statistics from her collar and register which cow has arrived. If the robot detects that the cow is sick, the milk is automatically “pumped and dumped.”
As a nursing mom of an infant, I couldn’t help but notice the similarity of the hoses used in the milking station and the ones I have for my Medela breast pump. Only, I had to wonder – where is my room at the Ritz?
Each milking session lasts five to eight minutes. After the milk is collected, it’s transferred to a holding tank and then taken to the farm’s kitchen at the Brown Cow, which houses Hope Acres’ gift shop, ice cream parlor, and restaurant.
Heindel’s grandfather purchased the twenty-one hundred acre dairy farm nearly twenty years ago. Heindel’s father then took over in 1996 and turned what had been a hobby into a business. He visited a number of dairy farms in Europe that used robots, before bringing one to Hope Acres in 2001. Hope Acres was one of the first dairy farms nationwide to be robot run, says Heindel with pride.
The tour ends with a free scoop in any flavor and ten percent off all purchases that day at the Brown Cow. Along with the standards, you’ll find some creative concoctions. The Hot Chocolate is infused with cinnamon, honey, and green chili sauce. Peachy Keen is flavored with amaretto and pecans. When Heindel’s wife and his two sisters were pregnant, pickle ice cream entered the flavor rotation as a joke, but became an unexpected hit at a local dill festival. I made sure to consume every last sinful drop of The Grasshopper – mint chocolate chip with vanilla cake crunch and chocolate cookies. Heindel explains that just like Häagen-Dazs, Hope Acres’ ice-cream is considered super premium grade.
After getting our ice cream fill, we decided we had to sample the other offerings. Hope Acres also sells its own hormone-free milk, cheese, and beef. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch, taking in the postcard picturesque rolling field views over a tasty burger and a cheese steak sandwich, sparing our little guy the details of exactly where our food came from…
Hope Acres
2680 Delta Road
Brogue, PA 17309
www.hopeacres.com (800) 293-1054
Tour reservations are required. Tickets cost $6.50 for adults, $4.50 for kids, and are free for those 3 and under. Tours run March through November, Tuesday through Saturday, and last about 75 minutes. Times vary. The farm’s website mentions that peanut shells are used on the farm and lists the following allergy warning: “Visitors with severe peanut allergies are urged to exercise caution.”
