Harrisburg Dairies is a family-owned company that fully
believes in supporting our local community.
We are active members of the Pennsylvania Association of Sustainable Agriculture (PASA). PASA is a nonprofit organization that promotes the practice of buying local. This practice helps our community thrive and allows us to produce a better quality product. In addition, Harrisburg Dairies is a member of Buy Fresh Buy Local® and PA Preferred – organizations whose mission is to encourage consumers and businesses to buy local.
OUR HISTORY
The Beginning
Harrisburg Dairies was founded in 1931 through the establishment of a partnership between Ben Wolfe and Elias Wager. In 1946, it was incorporated and developed the organizational structure that exists today.
Throughout the years, it has remained family owned and operated. Edwin Wagner become Ben Wolfe’s partner when his father, Elias, passed away. And when Ben Wolfe died, his son-in-law, Fred Dewey, assumed management. Shortly before Edwin Wagner passed away, he sold his interest back into the company, leaving the Dewey family sole owners. Today, Harrisburg Dairies is managed by 4th generation family members.
Early Years
From 1931 to 1945, Harrisburg Dairies was a pioneer in the introduction of homogenized Vitamin D milk and purepak paper containers, among other innovations.
The Dairy started out with only a handful of home delivery accounts. But through aggressive salesmanship, under the direction of Ben Wolfe, Harrisburg Dairies grew rapidly through the Depression and World War II. By 1948, there were 40 retail routes and 5 wholesale routes.
During WWII, Harrisburg Dairies was ordered by the Federal government to supply the Army’s milk products at Indiantown Gap, Carlisle Barracks, and the New Cumberland Army Depot. Even though this was a difficult task, the Dairy managed to achieve success during this time.
The Dairy continued to grow between 1945 and 1960 to a total of 140 retail routes and 15 wholesale routes, serving a wide area of South Central Pennsylvania.
More Recent Years
Until 1996, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had a “Grade AA” Quality rating, which required participating dairies to comply with standards up to ten times more stringent than those for Grade A dairies. Since this rating was administered by Pennsylvania, and not the Federal government, milk labeled with the “Grade AA” rating could not be sold outside Pennsylvania. When this rating was eliminated in 1996, Harrisburg Dairies continued to produce the same high quality products, but we were able to expand the business by selling our products in other states. Because of our continuing growing business, in 1999 we installed a state-of-the-art processing system which more than doubled our capacity. This new system also gave us increased flexibility in responding to our customers’ needs.
In 2005, Harrisburg Dairies relocated our garage facility. This new building allowed us to better service our fleet, thus giving us the ability to decrease any vehicle downtime. Also, by relocating, this gave Harrisburg Dairies the much needed room to expand our cooler. 2007 was a growth year, as we added three separate silos that helped modernize our production facility and increase volume capacity. Pairing with that, the cooler expansion was completed, allowing us to carry a wider range of products.
To this day, we continue to make updates to our facility that has been in the same location for over 90 years. These upgrades allow us to continue to serve our products to customers in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, New York and Washington, D.C.
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