Somewhat unexpected. Photo: Elmhurst

Last fall, New Yorkers got the sad news that the citys very last dairy plant was headed for the big pasture in the sky. Elmhurst Dairy, as it was known, was a century-old company whose milk could be found everywhere from Manhattan Starbucks cafs to 1,400 different public schools citywide. Until August, products were bottled for 80 years at the same facility in Jamaica, Queens. But as CEO Henry Schwartz told the New York Times at the time, the family-owned operation wasnt profitable anymore, and their plant had stayed open long past the years that it was economically viable mostly because hed promised his dad it would. More depressing, though, at least from a dairymans perspective, was what he said about his product: that milk has sort of gone out of style.

In hindsight, maybe that wasnt so depressing after all? Elmhurst (officially now without the Dairy part) has suddenly reemerged as, of all things, a producer of vegan nut milks. It quietly debuted four varieties almond, hazelnut, cashew, and walnut at the Natural Products Expo in Los Angeles two weeks ago:

Coincidentally, milk sales have been tanking in the U.S. for a while, so its hard not to read something deeply symbolic into this switch. Elmhursts redesigned site even offers an Our Story tab sort of a paean to its past that starts:

Of course, Manhattan farmland sounds hilarious now, and it looks like Elmhurst thought continuing to run a New York City dairy company in 2017 does, too. It brags its new nut milks are GMO- and gluten-free, kosher, minimally processed, sustainable, produce little food waste, contain no additives, and pack in more nutrition using a proprietary cold-milling technique.

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New York City's Last Remaining Dairy Has Reinvented Itself as a Nut-Milk Start-up - Grub Street