Making Milk Cool Again With Seth Bahler

Seth Bahler is the CEO of Oakridge Dairy and the Founder of Moozy and the U.S. Modern Milkman, businesses modernizing how farm-fresh dairy is produced, branded, and delivered. A fifth-generation dairy farmer, Seth guides growth, innovation, brand development, and strategic partnerships while advancing technology and sustainability across the operation. He specializes in transforming a legacy commodity business into consumer-focused brands built on quality, transparency, convenience, and fresh thinking.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[2:19] Seth Bahler’s fifth-generation startup mindset and vision for building the farm of the future
[5:42] How Oakridge Dairy scaled through automation, renewable energy, cow wearables, and DTC delivery
[12:42] Why canned milk became the next big opportunity for reaching younger consumers
[17:17] Seth’s first Moozy production run, Expo West launch, and early retail traction
[23:43] Capital allocation, brand investment, and using innovation as a retail entry point
[26:43] Seth’s approach to Gen Z research, transparent storytelling, flavor, and social media
[31:46] What AI-powered cow monitoring, dashboards, and financial tools are changing on the farm
[37:27] Seth’s mentors, family-business guidance, industry partnerships, and the team behind the launch

In this episode…

Milk is a familiar staple, but younger consumers expect products to feel convenient, distinctive, and connected to their values. Reaching them takes more than updated packaging; it requires a stronger story and a better fit with modern life. How can a traditional category become relevant again?

According to fifth-generation dairy farmer and consumer-brand builder Seth Bahler, the answer is to combine great flavor with modern packaging and a transparent farm story. His approach includes placing fresh milk in aluminum cans, learning directly from Gen Z students, and emphasizing where the product comes from across social media and in-store sampling. Seth recommends treating innovation as an entry point into retail while using consumer feedback to shape branding, messaging, and distribution. Together, these ideas show that legacy categories can evolve without losing the quality and heritage that make them valuable.

In this episode of The Missing Ingredient, CJ Bruce talks with Seth Bahler, CEO of Oakridge Dairy, about rebranding dairy for Gen Z. Seth shares how canned milk can refresh the category, why flavor and transparency matter, and how student research shaped the brand. He also discusses retail growth, farm technology, AI, and building a fifth-generation startup.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

“I like to tell people that we are a fifth-generation startup.”
“We have Fitbits on the cows; we have robots in the barn.”
“We partnered with some other farms in the area to bring fresh, local products to the doorstep.”
“We want to totally change the thought of how people think of dairy.”
“Really, we’re focused on flavor and then also telling the story about the farm.”

Action Steps:

Build a brand around product quality: Moving beyond commodity pricing creates stronger margins, consumer loyalty, and long-term business sustainability.
Learn directly from your target audience: Working with Gen Z students helped to reveal that flavor, transparency, and farm stories drive interest.
Test innovative packaging and positioning: Reimagining milk in aluminum cans made a familiar product feel modern, distinctive, and retail-ready.
Use technology to improve decision-making: Cow-monitoring tools, AI dashboards, and integrated data help teams identify problems earlier and act faster.
Focus your time on your strongest role: Delegating operations allows leaders to concentrate on vision, relationships, innovation, and future growth.

This episode is sponsored by The Missing Ingredient, a food and beverage marketing agency that believes a better future starts with food. They partner with purpose-driven brands to drive growth through smart, results-focused marketing — without the “set it and forget it” approach.

From brand awareness and paid media to content, influencer partnerships, and loyalty programs, they act as true strategic partners invested in your long-term success.

To learn more about how they help food and beverage brands grow with impact, visit themissingingredient.com today.

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Full Transcript

Introduction and Guest Background

Intro: 00:01

Welcome to The Missing Ingredient podcast with CJ Bruce, where food and beverage founders, operators and experts share the real strategies behind building successful brands. Let’s jump into today’s show.

CJ Bruce: 00:15

Hey, I’m CJ Bruce and welcome to the show. This is the podcast where founders and leaders of high impact food and beverage brands who are serious about scaling. Each episode, I sit down with the people who power the food and beverage industry, brand operators, agencies, vendors, creators, and retailers to uncomplicate the strategies that take brands from early traction to serious scale.

This episode is sponsored by The Missing Ingredient, a food and beverage marketing agency with over a decade in the industry. We take a different approach, starting with your business goals, looking at the full picture and building a marketing strategy that actually ties back to growth. From content performance marketing to influencer partnerships and AI powered workflows. We’re an extension of your team, not just another vendor. Learn more at themissingingredient.com.

Now, before introducing today’s guest, I want to give a big thank you to Fred Hart, who introduced us. You can check out his website at fredhart.com. And he specializes in CPG branding and strategic package design, helping brands to stand out at retail.

Now for today’s guest. Seth Bahler is a fifth generation dairy farmer and CEO of Oakridge Dairy, where he’s helped grow his family farm into a premium dairy brand focused on quality innovation and direct connection with consumers. He’s also the founder of Moozy, a new refrigerated milk brand, and aluminum cans created to bring fresh energy and a modern take to dairy. He’s passionate about building from the farm, up, challenging what’s possible in food, and showing that even a legacy business can still think big and do something disruptive. Welcome to the show, Seth.

Seth Bahler: 01:43

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

CJ Bruce: 01:46

Yeah, happy to have you here. So I want to start a little bit on your background and the, you know, you grew up around the farm. I know in past interviews, you’ve talked about how you didn’t really want to run it. You wouldn’t have, you know, your own thing and you built your own business construction and fencing. I think if I researched correctly.

And so when you go back and you know, now obviously you’re deep in the business. And so I’m curious, you know, what part of that original, you know, entrepreneurial spirit of you want, I want to build my own thing. Have you kind of brought into the business today as you’ve you’ve made it your own?

Building a Fifth-Generation Startup

Seth Bahler: 02:19

Yeah. I like to tell people that we are a fifth generation startup. So Oakridge has been here for many generations. But what we’re doing today feels very entrepreneurial startup, lots of opportunities, a lot of creativity. So definitely have that mindset and, and brought that into the business.

CJ Bruce: 02:41

That’s great. And so I’m curious how, you know, can you talk a little bit about that? Like there, like you said, fifth generation. So how have you, how have you brought that entrepreneurial spirit or energy into the business?

Seth Bahler: 02:51

I think, yeah, so our vision is being the farm of the future. So I think everything that we do in our business is really looking at the future from, you know, embracing technology to, you know, setting up a sustainability with the technology and the methods that we use. And also like, you know, incorporating, you know, new AI features and all sorts of stuff. So we’re, we’re bringing in all sorts of different thinking into the business, which, you know, that’s, that’s, you have to, to be a farm. We are located in a unique location in Connecticut.

Connecticut, where we are located, was once called the Malchus Mile in America, the town that we are living in, which, you know, in the early 30s, 40s everybody was a farmer. 80, 90% of the community was farming over the years. Those farms, you know, centralized or moved to the Midwest where there’s more land base and less people. And we’ve continued to stay and stay in business and, and focus on farming and, and producing good quality products, which gets us to today where we have a, a large supply of milk in a very densely populated area, you know, so we have a very unique situation is we, we produce around 27,000 gallons of milk every day on our farm. And we have 30 million people within a hundred miles of us.

We’ve always traditionally been in a commodity business. So our price is set on supply and demand on world markets. And, you know, we in Connecticut, it’s really hard to be a commodity producer because it’s all about, you know, making it very, very efficiently and lower cost. And we really can’t do that. So we’re taking the approaches if we want to be here long term and we want to be a sustainable business, we have to build a brand around that.

You know, good quality product and get in direct to the consumer. So that’s really what drives us every day. The unique part is we have a large volume of milk in this area.

Modernizing Oakridge Dairy

CJ Bruce: 05:22

Nice. Yeah. And then maybe be helpful to take a step back and give everybody the lay of the land because you have, like you said, the Oakridge obviously we mentioned. And then there’s also there’s The Modern Milkman, right, for delivery. Can you talk about, you know, what are those kind of component parts?

And we’ll dig into the pieces throughout the episode. But you give a high level overview. It’d be great.

Seth Bahler: 05:42

Yeah. So Oakridge Dairy is a fifth generation farm. My great great grandfather started that farm so primarily focused on dairy. About 12, 13 years ago, I came into the business And, you know, we had a lot of like FA, we had multiple locations and we brought it all to one centralized location and built the state of the art dairy farm where we are milking around 2500 cows every day on a rotary parlour, which means a carousel parlour where the cows are getting milked as they go around a 72 cow parrot carousel. We have brought in technology such as a methane digester, where we take all the manure and turn it into renewable natural gas that is powering homes.

We have Fitbits on the cows, we have robots in the barn. So we’ve really brought in a lot of technology and our very efficient farm that really focuses on really three pillars. You know, the people that work within the facility or people on our team, the cows are, are super important and the environment is super important. So really just working on how do we, how do we build a better future for the people, the cows and the environment? And that’s the farm bit.

And in 2017, 2018, we built this facility. But our, our, our vision was always, how do we, how do we be sustainable in Connecticut? And really, that’s building that brand piece that I talked about. So we played around with a few different thoughts of how do we just break into this building a brand as we have one customer and that is paid twice a month, and all of our milk goes to that one customer in tankers, and then we always have a demand for our milk. There’s always a place to go with it, but the price is always fluctuating on commodities.

So if something trade is off in the global economics, it affects our price. So. we were with one customer who said, how do we start breaking into that brand and branding piece? And, and, you know, start getting into, you know, dabbling into what will it take? And the thought came to us is, you know, let’s people are buying home delivery and let’s take a, a chapter from the past of home delivery milkman and put some technology around it that we can, you know, build an app and a website that people can order online, a subscription based and, and take the old concept and put some technology.

So we started bottling some of our milk under the Oakridge brand. And we started a third company called The Modern Milkman. And, you know, we start, we started delivering in 2019. And, you know, we got several hundred customers over 19. And it was more just we had one guy that we hired.

He’d pick up the milk from the farm, bring it to a plant that we rented, bottled the milk on a Monday, bring it back and delivered Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Then Covid hit. And that was like a springboard for our business. People were looking for food. They didn’t want to leave the house.

And we went from a couple hundred customers to several thousand customers in a six week span and, you know, hired whoever we could and rented any truck we possibly could. And really, that was a huge boost in our business because people were looking for good, healthy food. And we had the technology in about a year to work out any kinks. So we were ready when that hit. And we were able to really scale the business.

Once Covid, once things started opening back up, we were able to hold on to a lot of those customers. We were focused on high quality, premium products. We partnered with some other farms in the area to bring fresh, local products to the doorstep. So over the course of a couple years, we were able to hold on to those customers 2021 to 22, 23. We ended up partnering, which is another crazy story.

But we, we, when we started in 2019, there was this, there was a company in the UK that started the same business bit, same concept and same name. They were modernmilkmen.co.uk. We were modernmilkmen.com ended up in 2023 starting to chat just because we had the same name and ended up. They’ve really scaled to well over 100 000 customers, 500 trucks on the road, and they’ve really proven out the marketing in the last mile of the delivery and scaling that we’re really good at making milk and high quality milk. So we’ve ended up merging in 2000.

End of 2023 we’re Modern Milkman team from the UK came over and are running the operations of the last mile of delivery of handling, marketing and sales, and we supply them with the milk. So it’s helped. We’ve grown that business for X in the past two years. And it’s growing quite well and we’re opening up other locations in. We have another distribution center in Danbury.

We opened up one up in North Attleboro, but that was a, that was a way that we, you know, built our business up really are focused on what we’re good at, sold that portion off, but still are the number one vendor for Modern Milkman. But we don’t operate it anymore. So gave us a good, good network of understanding and building a food business. getting our building a brand and then being able to sell it and exit, but also still have a piece of the pie as well.

CJ Bruce: 12:04

Yeah. That’s cool. I mean, it’s a really interesting perspective and I love that they say that, right? Great ideas happen in two places at least at once. Right.

It’s like the exact same name in business is really interesting.

Seth Bahler: 12:16

The CEO of The Modern Milkman in the UK and I are like really good friends and we think a lot alike. And it’s just like, you guys, it seems like we’ve been best friends like for a long time.

Making Milk Cool Again With Moozy

CJ Bruce: 12:27

So that’s great. So let’s yeah, talk a little bit about Moozy milk in a can, right. Targeted towards Gen Z. And so what’s the, how did that kind of come out of, out of all of this? And where is that today?

Seth Bahler: 12:42

We built the bottling plant several or 3 or 4, about three years ago. We built our own plant. So we were always renting a bottling facility where we’d bottle our milk and we had. That was one of our weakest links to grow The Modern Milkman. So we’ve been working on designing and building a plant for several years.

Well, we finally got it up and going a few years ago and it gave us the ability to, you know, scale our brand and getting into more retail space of Oakridge Dairy. But one of the things is Oakridge Dairy is going to is really like a regional, the northeast. We want to really build a premium brand in the northeast where glass bottles. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a really premium product. And we wanted the ability to scale that farther than the northeast.

So looking at different options, look at looking at different packaging. And I, I think it was one week I had a, someone tell me about liquid death and I went right to the grocery store and bought one. And they’re like, they can sell water in a can. And I was just thinking like, we could sell milk in a can. And looking around, is it, has it been done before?

And really the fresh, good quality milk has not been put in the can the way we are doing it. It was there was a few protein drinks that have been in the can, but really there’s never been like good chocolate milk or good flavored milk in a can. So really seeing what they did with water in a can, like we can definitely do that with milk. And so that started us down the process of how could we do this? So we bought a bunch of used equipment and been working out behind the scenes for the past year and a half of trying to get it approved through the FDA to allow us to put milk in a can because we’re a grade A milk plant and we just see it, see a need for making milk cool.

It’s kind of Something that, like traditionally over the past 50 years, you’d see a gallon of milk on the, on the table. You know, a family sitting around the table eating spaghetti with a gallon of milk on the table. That is not the case in modern day. And really, how do we bring good taste and quality milk to all generations, but really focus on the younger generation because it seems like there’s been a gap in people drinking milk, but it’s, it’s very nutritious. It has a lot of protein and we really focus on flavor.

And I think that’s where we’re coming at. It is we launched this. We’ve been working behind the scenes for several months or so, almost a year and a half. We started, we came up with the thought of like, hey, let’s put milk in a can. We submitted a grant to put some equipment in and we in.

We actually won that grant and then it was like, hey, as we as we dug into it, like, hey, there’s a lot of opportunity here. So we ended up saying, let’s work with a good CPG branding agency. And we reached out to a few and we started working with Freshmade. I’m not sure if you ever met any of them before, but we started working with Freshmade, which they only do food branding and packaging and went down the road. And, you know, we came to them with the idea of how do we make melt cool again is really like, we want to put milk in a can and we want to, we want to make milk cool.

And for the younger generation, so we went through a lot of research working closely with DMI, which is dairy marketing, which is a checkoff for all dairy farmers pay into. And they gave us a bunch of information and research and, and ended up. You know, going through several different concepts in studies and landed on the knee and really focused on that younger generation.

Launching Moozy at Expo West

CJ Bruce: 17:00

That’s really cool. Really interesting. So now, you know, now it’s out in the world. And how, how has the reception been? And like, you know, bring it to life.

I mean, I saw some of the stuff you were, you know, you yourself on, on social getting out there. And that’s a fun post. Yeah. How, how has the go to market piece been?

Seth Bahler: 17:17

It’s been going good. So we made our first batch beginning of February or sorry, it was the end of February. We worked through this process project with DMI and got some information from them in. In the fall of 25 they reached out to us and said, hey, would you want to join us in our booth at Expos? We want to showcase your brand in our DMI booth with three other different brands that we work with.

So it was our deadline to get all the equipment installed and approved with FDA, as well as getting all the marketing and the branding complete. So our deadline was the end of February to get everything done. And I think we made the milk on a Thursday or on a Wednesday, and it was put in a truck that day and headed to California. And really Expo West for 2026 was our, our official launch. So it’s, it was the first batch we ever made in a can was, was sent to Expo West and we got to launch it there.

And that was really, really cool to see, you know, buyers and distributors and, and the feedback that we got is this is really good tasting. We love the branding, we love the concept. And it was a, it gave us a big shot in the arm like, hey, we’re, we’re getting the attention of buyers and, and distributors and. we really we have about a hundred locations that we deliver our glass bottle milk into, as well as the home delivery. So we have a pretty good Oakridge presence in Connecticut.

So when we got back from Expo West, we had to finalize some things to get final approvals. We. Our first batch was only sample batch. It wasn’t even approved with FDA. So we.

We got back from Expo list. We did some final approvals and we made our first batch of saleable milk beginning of April. And. And so we’re really new at this. And, you know, we’re a month and a half in and we’re, we’re in about 150 stores so far over the first, you know, six weeks.

And so far, so good. It’s, it’s a new it’s a refrigerated product. You know, we’re still working on shelf life of like make trying to see how far we can get shelf life and all that. So there’s a lot of logistics to work out. But so far, people getting it in people’s hands.

It’s been great. We have a pretty aggressive. We’re pretty aggressive on doing sampling and getting in stores and doing as much as we can in store to get it in people’s hands. We have a farm store right on the farm in like we’re selling about a thousand cans a week through our sick. It’s a 12 by 20 shed and people are coming here nonstop buying it.

So we see a ton of opportunity. It’s just getting it in the hands, getting on, getting it on shelves and then starting to do the marketing to, you know, really try to push it farther. We have a few distributors that we’re, we’re working with coming on in June. So it’s yeah, it’s been good.

Expanding Moozy’s Regional Distribution

CJ Bruce: 20:50

Okay. That’s awesome. And so, and right now, is it, is it primarily regional distribution in the northeast?

Seth Bahler: 20:55

It is it is regional.

Seth Bahler: 20:57

And it really in Connecticut, a little bit into Massachusetts. We we did send our our first batch to a distributor in New York who’s going to be getting it into New York, new Jersey, as well as working, talking with distributor rainforest, who’s going to hopefully get us all the way from Maine to Miami as, as the goal, as we as we scale. But we want to make sure that we can be able to provide them with a good service and a good product. So, you know, take slow steps, but scale it as quick as possible.

CJ Bruce: 21:35

Yeah. You’re the, you know, changing. They’re improving the engines on the plane while you’re flying it. Yeah. It sounds like a bit of that, that situation.

Yeah. That’s awesome. Curious to yeah. Shift like, you know, you’re running these businesses with two, two businesses. And so how are you like allocating your time and also capital and like, what’s going into, you know, Oakridge versus Moozy and how do you think about that and manage that?

Seth Bahler: 21:59

Yeah. So I thankfully, we have an amazing team. And so I get to focus on projects like this. So from a time allocation, I’m, I’m, I’m the visionary of the company. We have somebody have, we have guys on the operations side that are really, really good and keep the operations going really well.

I’ve realized in my career that I am not an operations person. I understand it. I’m a big picture thinker, so I understand it and can comprehend it. No. Know what it takes because I’ve operated in ran operations, but I’m better at the future and thinking through and big relationships and all that.

So thankfully we have a great team and I get to spend my time on growing and building and the vision in the future. So been able to put a lot of energy into this project. And I would say it probably split depending on the weeks, but it’s probably 50% in on the music side and 50% on Oakridge some weeks or more or less than the others either way, but been able to try to split my time. Yeah.

Investing in Innovation and Retail Growth

CJ Bruce: 23:21

That yeah. Then I’m curious on the like time allocation, what about capital allocation as you’re like, you talked about you did a lot of investments in Oakridge and modernizing it and all the, you know, Fitbits on the cows, which I want to get back to. But in terms of, you know, rolling out or that the operations team is, you know, kind of handling some of that with Oakridge, and you’re focusing on how that structure looks.

Seth Bahler: 23:43

Like a capital side is, you know, a couple things on capital. So we did do an expansion on the dairy and, and put a state of the art facility in. We built the brand new bottling plant. So we’ve put a lot of investment into Oakridge. Moozy is a subbrand of Oakridge.

So it’s still owned 100%. It’s just we felt, you know, one of the considerations is, hey, let’s just take a can and put a low Oakridge, Oakridge logo on it and test it. But thinking through that, it’s like, you know, we have the opportunity right now. Let’s launch it and put the money and, and resources into it to, you know, do the research and brand, make it really a nice brand where we think can go and, and spend the capital behind branding it. So we have made a good investment into this brand and we continue to put a lot of marketing into it moving forward.

We see this is almost I don’t know what you call it a like a secret horse to get into a store is this is innovation. Buyers are looking for innovation. So they see us doing Mousie. If we can get this into the store and then also, you know, backfill it with some of our glass bottle product products as well. So as we’ve gone through the past couple months and get the excitement of the buyers and all that, we, we really want to make a splash this year in, in this.

So, you know, we’re doing the fancy food show in New York City. We’re going to Idba in Orlando in a couple weeks and really want to put a lot of energy in, in, in capital into this first year of really trying to make a splash and get in on the shelves and getting consumers to know what we’re doing and, and tell that story that we’re doing. So we have significant investment in CapEx into all the projects. But from a marketing side this year, this is the most marketing dollars we’re putting towards this new brand. And we have ever so nice.

CJ Bruce: 26:01

Yeah, it’s exciting and it’s so it makes sense to in the Trojan horse and getting, you know, a foothold into the, in the, in the retail environment. And then curious to think about the, you know, the, the local going to national and like the messaging there and how you think about obviously Oakridge sounds like, like very deep, right. Local, obviously. And you said most of it is in the market. And so as Moozy’s going, you know, ultimately national brand, right.

Going down to Florida and I mean, across the country, how do you think about, you know, communicating that heritage story and the kind of the depth there and the quality of the milk and yeah. Tracy, you thought about that messaging.

Using Gen Z Research to Shape Moozy’s Marketing

Seth Bahler: 26:43

I think that’s a really good question because when we started engaging with the marketing agency, my thought was, hey, we want to put milk in a can and we want to be a disruptor. So we don’t want to be the traditional, you know, cows head on a, on a can. And, and, you know, that’s what our cows head on a bottle of milk and, and say we’re x, y d dairy company. We want to totally change the thought of how people think of dairy. And it’s not just cows.

It’s about like building a really cool brand. It’s about the customers or consumers that are, are drinking this and, and just want to, you know, make that like be the story of cool branding. So that said, we worked with a senior class at the business school of UConn, UConn business school in the marketing department, so we work with them over the semester of, hey, here’s our product that we’re going to be launching. We’re focusing on Gen Z. How do we market to people like you?

So over the course of the last couple months, they just graduated this spring. So over the course of the few months semester, they did a lot of research on Gen Z and how to market it. And that farm story really, really resonated with the student. So, you know, telling the story, telling the heritage, it didn’t quite meet like the local bit wasn’t as important as like the transparent part of the story, the, you know, the like where their food comes from and being really transparent. And, and that was probably top of mind is like, you need to be on TikTok, you need to be on Instagram, you need to be telling how great tasting it is.

So really we’re focused on flavor and then also telling the story about the farm. So going into it was like, I want to be totally different. The packaging is totally different, but we need to make sure that we’re really telling the story about the farm and where the product is and the transparency of everything. So.

CJ Bruce: 29:04

Yeah. It’s interesting. It’s cool. I mean, it makes sense. Like definitely with the Gen Z, you know, just values and shopping behavior and how they’re thinking about things and you’ve got that baked in.

So it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s cool to hear that came out in the, in the research you did also, that’s a really smart idea for going to, to Yukon and like, hey, we’re trying to sell to you.

Seth Bahler: 29:25

And it was, it’s been pretty cool because, you know, you get a lot of ideas and it’s like, these are the, these are the young kids that are young adults that are going to be we’re trying to market towards. So let’s get your feedback and get a lot of free, free opinions. And it was fun for the students as well as they got to work on a real live project all semester long. And they really enjoyed it too. And we’re working with them again this fall.

They’re actually doing a testing lab where they are setting up an agency within the school to, you know, do some projects and we’re going to hire them for their actually testing it this year for free. And they’re going to work on some special projects for us within this, this brand. So that’s cool.

CJ Bruce: 30:12

Wow. That is really cool. Yeah.

Seth Bahler: 30:16

I guess that’s the yeah, I think it’s.

CJ Bruce: 30:19

Totally being scrappy and having. Well, I think it’s a nice example of it’s being scrappy and one of the best approaches, I feel like because you’re, you’re getting the actual people who, again, you’re talking to your target market to help you come up with the marketing. And they’re obviously bought in, they’re excited. And like you said, they get the benefit of being able to work on a real brand and then see, you know, see how it comes to life on the other side. So it’s really interesting.

Seth Bahler: 30:45

And now we have several students this summer doing demos for us and like going to events and stuff like that. So it’s been great to get connections through that as well. Yeah. For that younger crowd.

Cow Wearables, AI, and Data-Driven Farming

CJ Bruce: 31:01

That’s great. Yeah. There’s, I mean, I could imagine a feedback loop there of, well, now they’re out there on the front lines and they’re talking to people and like, you know, be able to relate to the people who are again, like them and they already know the brand really well. That’s really great. I do want to circle back to some of the technology pieces on the farm you talked about.

So the, you know, I mean, yeah, the Fitbits on the cows, one that just just stuck out. But also AI is something, you know, we, we ask every guest about this, something that we’re, you know, heavily invested in. And I think it’s, you know, impacting, I mean, our industry, but every industry in ways large and small. And so at a high level, I’m curious how AI is impacting, you know, your work both on the farm and how you’re thinking about music.

Seth Bahler: 31:46

Yeah. So starting with the, the Fitbits for a cow is yeah, each cow has a pedometer on her neck. So we know how much she’s walking, how much she’s eating, how much she’s laying down. And, you know, I think it’s, it’s, it’s really AI it, it’s, you know, taking each cow, learning her rhythm, running an algorithm. So the Fitbit learns each individual cow.

So we it’s a tool to help us manage so we can know if you know, there’s a less activity. Like certain activity is steady. And then all of a sudden there’s less activity. We’ll capture sick three days before you’ll see visual signs. Counties can’t communicate.

So it’s a way for us to manage and have the right tools to be proactive on health and making sure that she’s happy. Well, and, you know, we are taking the best possible care for our animals. So, you know, having those tools is super important. As for AI, you know, we have we dabble in it in all aspects of the business really. I think from the dairy side, we are working on platforms.

So we have a lot of different platforms within the, the dairy business of like from our nutrition software to our parlour software to our cow software to the Fitbits, to the milk weights that we get from our, our suppliers to the, I think there’s ten different softwares and we’re working with, we’re a beta farm for an AI company that takes all that information, brings it to one platform, and then has a dashboard that shows all that, all that information so we can make better decisions quicker. And also it’s like every morning at every morning we get a four minute podcast of taking all that information, articulating it in a way that our managers can listen to that four minute podcast on their way to work. And it’s very detailed of like, what they should be working on, what they should be checking based off of all the things, all the information it’s getting fed. So that’s a really cool part on the dairy side, you know, from an AI side of we’re, we’re dabbling in like what it takes from like a financial reporting and, and, you know, a production and processing standpoint of how do we streamline, streamline things? So, you know, then really digging into Claude and seeing what it can do for us from a financial reporting side, you know, one of our controllers, we have a third party controller, CFO, she moved to a different company.

So we’ve been running without one. And it’s like, you know, we put all the. They put all the reports and everything that we do in cloud. And it’s like, amazing what that can do for us. So really embracing it in a few different areas, but probably not using it nowhere near what the full potential could be, but really excited about it.

Oakridge’s Place in the Future of Dairy

CJ Bruce: 35:00

That’s really cool. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if anybody knows the full potential. I think like doing what you’re doing is the way to go, right? Like apply it to real things that are solving real problems for your business and see what it can do and how.

I mean, my assumption is that the broader industry is not doing this type of thing. Like where do you sit in terms of like other dairies.

Seth Bahler: 35:20

Age of a dairy.

Seth Bahler: 35:21

Farmers like 60 years old? So I think, yeah, you know, we’re in some, some groups with some very progressive farms that are, are embracing this. And, but there’s a huge population of dairy that probably isn’t. So it’s, you know.

CJ Bruce: 35:47

More than progressive. Yeah, yeah.

Seth Bahler: 35:48

We’re on the progressive side. But I, I like, I think I, I’m not saying what there’s a lot of different ways to do what we’re doing. So it’s not like our way is the only way. So.

CJ Bruce: 36:01

Totally. Yeah. That’s, that’s, that’s really interesting though.

Seth Bahler: 36:04

I think it’s the way that we feel our future needs to be run. But if we’re in the middle of Kansas, it’s going to be different, you know, because. Yeah, they don’t have the population, but they have the land base to, to grow and, and grow more cows and, and grow more feed. We don’t have those abilities. So growing and brand and, and, you know, working that in our growth plan is what we’re focused on.

CJ Bruce: 36:30

Yeah, that makes sense. I have one final question to get to. But before I get to that, I want to make sure to point people to all the places to find you. So I know we’ve got oakridgedairy.com moozymilk.com.

So moozymilk.com. Is there anywhere else that you’d recommend people go to, you know, learn about the companies or, you.

Seth Bahler: 36:57

Know, that’s, you know, we, we’re on the socials, you know, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, doing some so.

CJ Bruce: 37:09

Awesome. Cool. All right. So before we leave, I want to ask you, you know, if there’s anybody in your world could be partner or mentor or somebody behind the scenes that deserves a shout out, like anybody who’s kind of helped you through your life and your career as you’ve been, you know, thinking about working, growing the business.

Seth Bahler: 37:27

Yeah, there’s, there’s so many people that have helped me where I’ve gotten to today really like I couldn’t have done it or it’s not all me. It’s really like the people that I’ve been able to surround myself. Like I’ve had some great mentors, you know, early on in the farm, like our family was going through a lot of struggles of like, it’s a family business, it’s four generations. What’s the succession of the fifth generation and all that? And, you know, I had some mentors that have come alongside and helped on the family transition.

And, you know, work gave a lot of advice. I had one farmer from Minnesota that gave me a lot of insights and then work with a banker that, you know, he passed away, but he’s a huge influence. And then over the, the branding side of, you know, working with DMI, Paul Ziemnisky over at DMI has been super helpful and like brainstorming and innovation in the dairy space and, and then on our own team, like our operations team, Like getting to this project over the finish line, working with FDA, you know, learning that whole process. We have a lady in our office, Brie, who’s been instrumental in trying to get, you know, all the approvals and all that. So, so many people have been helpful and the list would be quite long.

CJ Bruce: 39:04

Oh that’s great. Appreciate it. Seth. All right. We’ve been talking to Seth Bahler, CEO of Oakridge Dairy.

Be sure to check him out at oakridgedairy.com, as well as moozymilk.com. And you can follow Moozy Milk on Instagram @drinkmoozymilk. Seth, thanks so much for being on the show.

Seth Bahler: 39:21

Yeah. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Outro: 39:24

Thanks for listening to The Missing Ingredient podcast. We’ll see you again next time. And be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.

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