Green Mountain Creamery is the brand name of products made by Commonwealth Dairy, headquartered in Brattleboro, Vermont.
The primary reason we produce some Green Mountain Creamery in Arizona is due to growth in demand for our brand. We were shipping yogurt all the way to the West coast, which was expensive and inefficient. In order to reduce our carbon footprint; we built a dairy south of Phoenix and source our milk from a handful of family-owned dairies within 15 miles of the facility.
No. All the fruit and flavor preparations used in Green Mountain Creamery yogurts are made from all natural ingredients including non-GMO native corn starch. We do not use artificial additives (e.g., flavors, colors, sweeteners) high fructose corn syrup or preservatives.
The milk used in Green Mountain Creamery yogurt is sourced from local dairy farms in Vermont, New Hampshire and New York. We produce some items at our Arizona facility with milk sourced local to the plant. All of the milk we use is from dairy cows that are not treated with artificial growth hormones. All of the milk used in our products is Grade A and rBST free.
Our plain yogurt contains up to 7 grams of naturally occurring sweetener from the lactose in the milk. The fruit flavors and vanilla use only pure cane sugar, and the maple contains pure maple syrup from Vermont.
The whey is recycled and used as a livestock feed additive.
Yes, our yogurts are all gluten-free.
Greek yogurt has an extra processing step in which the whey protein is strained off to concentrate the yogurt. Approximately three cups of milk goes into making one cup of Green Mountain Creamery Greek yogurt.
Please go to our product locator online at http://commonwealthda.wpengine.com/. You can also request the product be brought to a store near you using our request form - http://commonwealthda.wpengine.com/wheretobuy/?ZIP=00000
We responsibly manage our whey. We invested in equipment to purify the whey so we can use the water in our plant. What remains of the whey is purified and we sell it back to local farmers for livestock feed. We responsibly manager the whey by-product. When it is removed from the milk, we have equipment that separates the water and whey. The water is used in our plant and the whey is sold back to local farmers as feed for their livestock.
Local Sustainability
o Support for the local dairy economy and community is vital to the future of Vermont,the preservation of Vermont's Greenspace and its agricultural future.
o Our plant utilizes a significant quantity of locally produced milk. All of this milk is rBST-free, and comes predominately from Vermont and nearby New England farms.
o We pay our farmers a premium for rBST-free milk and low somatic cell counts (an indicator of herd health).
o We fund scholarship programs at University of Vermont (UVM) and Vermont Technical College for students majoring in, or studying/researching dairy science.
o We provide paid summer internship programs for students.
o We provide financial support to a wide array of local dairy fundraising and assistance programs.
o We support the Vermont Foodbank.