Milk Barn Creamery wins Best of State 2024

When Aaron and Lisa Rose opened the Milk Barn Creamery July 1, 2023, they were fulfilling a long-time dream of Aaron’s. Now, a year later, they have celebrated their first-year anniversary along with winning a 2024 Best of State Utah Award for Ice Cream in the Informal Dining Category

Owner Lisa Rose said that it’s been a wonderful year for the Milk Barn Creamery. “It’s still surreal that it actually happened,” she said, reflecting back on the opening last July. “We were so worried asking ourselves ‘Will anyone come? Will anyone like it?’”

“After our opening day and running out of ice cream and being so busy, we still look back and ask ‘How are we here? Did it really happen?’” she continued. “The community has been so awesome and supportive. Everyone has been so kind. It’s so great to be a part of the community. It is really fulfilling.”

Lisa, who develops each unique recipe for the ice cream they sell, explained that the biggest challenge of the past year has been learning how to deal with the growth. Lisa delineated that many of the challenges with growth have been procedural like figuring out how to do certifications with the state to sell their products in grocery stores. “Our business has changed so much in the last year!”

For 10 years, the Rose Family had sold raw milk and cream from the Rose Family Farm in Richville with various family members working to support the business. Three years ago, they hired two employees full time: Cheesemaker Chet Tracey and Milk Barn Retail General Manager Trevor Rose. In the past year, Milk Barn Creamery has grown to five full-time employees with 25 part-time workers. They have added Garrett Kippen who runs the processing facility and ice cream makers Bailee Rose and Brian Rose.

One exciting event for the Milk Barn Creamery happened in May when they were awarded the Best of State Utah 2024 Award for Ice Cream for the Informal Dining Category. To be considered for the award, Milk Barn had to complete an extensive form and submit it. Next, seven judges came to the creamery to judge their product. 

“Some of the judges told us they were coming, and others didn’t,” Lisa said. “One of the judges who didn’t tell us who she was when she was judging us later returned and explained that she was an instructor of Culinary Classes at Salt Lake Community College. She asked several questions and ended up bringing her students up to the farm and processing facility to learn about cheese making.”

“It was an exciting process,” Lisa said. 

Each month the Milk Barn Creamery serves thousands of cups of ice cream. In July 2024, they sold 7,143 cups!  The top flavors sold were Cookies N Cream (668 cups) and Raspberry Cheesecake (639 cups). Cookie Dough and Cookie Butter generally follow as the third/fourth most favorite flavors. Lisa noted appreciatively, “Many customers chose to celebrate the Fourth of July with us, making it the busiest day of the year. That day alone, we sold 800 cups of ice cream!”

Over the course of the year, they have learned several things about likes and dislikes in the ice cream community and have only discontinued one of the original flavors: banana pudding. “It was less popular and also expensive to make,” Lisa said. An interesting Milk Barn fact is that their strawberry sour cream is the most expensive flavor to make due to the high cost of strawberry puree throughout the year.

Ice cream lovers can look forward to churro and passion fruit ice cream in August with fall seasonal favorites and Christmas favorites returning again. “We feature at least one flavor each month with two in summer and at holidays,” Lisa said. 

Happy 1st Birthday Milk Barn, and congratulations on winning Best of State Utah 2024!λ