Maple View Farm

Twelve at a time, they've already passed through the mechanical parlor, where machines take four minutes to milk each cow.

The amount of milk produced by each animal has been electronically recorded, and sent to a computer inside the plant.

They'll do this two more times today. And by tomorrow or the next day, bottles of their fresh milk will be in the refrigerators of thousands of customers across Orange County and the rest of the Triangle region.

This is how it's done at Maple View Farm, arguably the area's most well-known, well-respected and perhaps most-loved producers of milk, ice cream and butter.

But the process from farm to table involves more than just milking a cow into a tin bucket.

Producing up to 8,000 gallons of milk each week comes from a process perfected by the Nutter family, which has run dairy operations at Maple View since 1922.

Bob Nutter, who co-owns the farm, began managing and raising the Holstein dairy cows in 1922 on a his family farm in Maine. In 1963, the family moved the operation to North Carolina, finding a better milk market and climate.

Today, Nutter owns the farm along with Russ Seibert, a herd manager.

Nutter's son, Roger Nutter, is the plant manager for the milk bottling operation, which opened 10 years ago. Bob Nutter's daughter, Muffin Brosig, runs the office.

The family supplies milk to dozens of grocery stories from Burlington to Sanford to North Raleigh. In addition, its three stores -- one at the farm, one in Hillsborough and one in Carrboro -- sell dairy products, ice cream and beef from Maple View cattle.

Of the 300 cows at Maple View, on Dairyland Road just northwest of Chapel Hill, 140 are used for milking. They live in a special barn, eating a nutritionist-mixed combination of grain. At any given time, the farm has a dozen or so calves being raised, living in little huts and also eating special food.

The farm also has a special barn for older young cows and pregnant cows, and a spot for cows not being milked.

The farm raises its own replacements for cows that can't be milked. And, yes, they all have names.

"But we don't really call them by name," Roger Nutter said. "We know them by number. We have a couple with more personality, though. They kind of get close to you."

One person milks the entire herd three times a day, a process that takes some three hours.

The cows, which each produce about eight gallons a day, line up outside the milking parlor, and come in 12 at a time to be attached to the machine.

When the cow is done, the machine automatically retracts, the cows leave and the next group comes in. From the parlor, the milk flows through underground pipes to the processing and bottling plant.

In a steamy room the size of a small classroom, milk first is pasteurized, meaning it is heated to kill bacteria that might be present. It then flows into a homogenizer, which shatters fat globules to prevent fat from rising to the top of the milk, creating a skin.

Some also goes through a separator, which separates the cream from the milk to make skim milk. During the holiday season, some of the milk is turned into eggnog.

Finally, the milk pumps into a bottler, which fills Maple View's hallmark glass bottles, which the farm has had for years, and sterilizes and reuses.

The glass makes the product stand out on the shelves, Roger Nutter said. And, he added, it makes the milk taste better.

"Milk needs to stay below 40 degrees to taste good," he said. "Milk cools off quicker in glass, and stays colder. In school, you get those little cartons of milk, and it's so warm. That's why I think kids don't like milk. They never have it cold enough."

But locally many are fans of Maple View's cold milk. Mary Wells of Cary said its the only milk her family will drink.

"I don't know what we'd do if we left the area," Wells said, as she plucked a bottle off the shelf at a local Harris Teeter. "I like knowing where my milk comes from. I do here."

Although the plant makes only as much milk in a week as a larger dairy would make in two hours, fans are loyal.

In August, when the plant stopped production for a few days because of a bacteria scare, fans remained loyal. Customers posted encouraging comments on the farm's Web site.

Jeff McVey of Mebane said he almost started crying when he heard he couldn't restock his refrigerator with Maple View buttermilk.

"I have to have a glass of your buttermilk everyday," he said. "I believe your loyal and dedicated customers on and off this site will return as soon as the milk does."

Nutter attributed that loyalty to good customer service. For example, when a woman called once, complaining that her glass milk bottle broke in her car on the way home from the store, the family apologized and sent her some gift certificates.

People also like the freshness, Nutter added.

"People who buy our milk here know it comes right from here," he said. "It's fresh. We bottle it today, and it will be on the shelf tomorrow or [the next day]."