Customer Spotlight: Donia Farms

Our next customer spotlight is on Donia Farms, a local dairy farm established in 1955. Located in Surrey, British Columbia, they are committed to transparency in their farming and look to share that with consumers.

We caught up with David Van Keulen, who runs Donia Farms with his two brothers, to chat about their journey so far:

1) Tell me a little about Donia Farms and what you stand for.

We're a third-generation dairy farm located in Surrey, B.C.

Back in 2015, we decided to put a brand on our products and sell directly to retailers. Typically, dairy brands have no connection to the farm, but we wanted to have our milk traceable back to our farm and allow consumers to connect back to us. We felt a disconnect within the agriculture industry so having our product on the shelf allowed us to connect with customers and tell a story. Instead of just being active on social media, this was our way to carry a message and have people relate to what we’re doing and participate in the conversation about modern agriculture.

We started out with a kefir project in the beginning and then moved to grass-fed milk products. We now service a lot of grocery stores in Western Canada with our milk, butter, and yogurt. We’re slowly adding products every year. Once we get a product established, we add something new!

2) How did Donia Farms manage through the pandemic?

Having our products in grocery stores, we saw a jump in sales, and that’s where most of our sales were from. It was challenging on the farming side of things because of staffing and dancing through the regulations. Overall, we hadn’t had too many challenges until recently with the supply chain issues. Lead times have been a lot longer, and there’s more uncertainty about getting products on time.

3) What are you most proud of as a company?

I'm proud of what we've built and our ability to connect back to the consumers and talk about agriculture.

4) How would you describe your relationship with ALP?

We started working with Dennis when we started working on our kefir project; he was a great help in getting that put together. Then we went away and came back to Associated a number of years later. We love the customer service and the quality at Associated; the turnaround from Dennis and Adela is pretty quick, especially when it comes to any issues. It’s nice to have a supplier that’s right there with you to help you figure out some of those challenges.

Ultimately, we sell a premium product, so having high-quality packaging is key, especially for dairy products that don’t have much space. You need the label to pop, and I think we achieved that with the artwork and quality of our labels.

5) What are you currently working on, and what are you excited about in the next few years?

We hope to continue growing our business and serving customers; that’s the most exciting thing for us. We’re also looking into new products that we will slowly release over the next few years.