Clover Sonoma

Clover Stornetta Farms, Inc.

Company type	Privately held
Industry	Dairy
Founded	1916 (1916)
Founder	Gene Benedetti
Headquarters	Petaluma, California , United States
Area served	California
Products	Milk
Website	cloverstornetta.com

Clover Stornetta Farms, Inc. (also Clover Organic Farms or simply CLOVER) is a dairy company located in Sonoma County, California, along the Pacific coast in Northern California. It is a brand that has existed since the early 1900s, when the Petaluma Cooperative Creamery served the city of Petaluma. In 1977, Clover Stornetta Farms, Inc. was formed from the joining of two separate companies: Stornetta's Dairy and the Petaluma Cooperative Creamery (which distributed "Clover" brand dairy products). Clover Stornetta currently has farms in Sonoma County, Marin County, and Mendocino County.

History

The Petaluma Cooperative Creamery began distributing "Clover" brand dairy products to homes and stores in the city of Petaluma in the early 1900s. Eventually the company started to expand and sold their products throughout Sonoma County and its southern neighbor, Marin County. The population of both counties grew rapidly and eventually "Clover" brand products were being sold to almost every grocery store in the four counties of the North Bay, but, in 1975, the largest fire in Petaluma's history occurred, causing some destruction to the dairy cooperative, destroying the processing and bottling operations along with the cooler, and bringing about changes that would forever affect the company.

In August 1977, the owners of Clover bought the wholesale distribution from the co-op after deciding not to rebuild their own co-op facility. Clover also bought the Stornetta Dairy in the city of Sonoma. In 1984, the owners of Clover Stornetta decided to move their company and the whole distribution back to the company's original city of Petaluma. In June 1991, Clover Stornetta opened a new state-of-the-art milk processing facility at their current location in Petaluma. (The Stornetta Dairy in Sonoma was Clover’s only bottling plant at the time.) The equipment in Sonoma had been antiquated and a large amount of the work had had to be done manually. With the new automated plant run by computerized controls, Clover became able to triple the output of the former plant with the same amount of manpower.

Clover Stornetta introduced their "North Coast Excellence" program in 1995 and a full third-party certification was later added in 1999. North Coast Excellence Certified guarantees that all of the milk produced at the company’s plant came from only the best milk producers in the North Coast region, and the milk was produced by cows that were not treated with artificial growth hormones. The milk is tested in their on-site lab at each stage of processing.

Clo the Cow

In 1969, Clo the Cow made her debut as the Clover Stornetta mascot when she started appearing on billboards across the Redwood Empire. Every year, numerous designs and a variety of wordplay are designed for billboard advertising.

Awards

North Coast Excellence Program

• Products Certified Healthy
• Independent Auditor verifies Clover Stornetta has Cleanest Milk
• North Coast Dairy Processor First in the Industry to Make Quality Assertions

Free Farmed Award

• In September 2000, Clover Stornetta Farms was the first dairy in the United States to be awarded the Free Farmed label for humanely produced animal products. It remains one of just two in the United States to have this designation.

Founders of the New Northwest

• Clover Stornetta Farms was honored in 2003 when Sustainable Northwest, based in Portland, Oregon, named Clover as one of the recipients of the Founders of a New Northwest award. The mission of Sustainable Northwest is to build partnerships that promote environmentally sound economic development in the communities of the Pacific Northwest.

HACCP: Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point

• Clover Stornetta Farms was one of the first dairies in the United States to receive the HACCP certification, originally developed in the 1960s for NASA.

External links

• American Humane article about Clover Stornetta