Junction City ? Adding volume to keep pace with ever-slimming profit margins has been part of the challenge since Arnold and Rose Hildebrand began milking cows in 1930.

Today, two of their grandsons — and their wives — have decided on a different model, banking that “better” might just trump “bigger,” after all.

And with a nostalgic twist, they aim to make middle men in the milk business less of a factor in their operation, by taking on their duties and keeping their income share.

Armed with a feasibility study, years of research, some encouragement from Kansas State University and bolstered by lots of talk over the dinner table, Dave and Kathy and Alan and Mary Hildebrand on Sept. 26 began branding, bottling and selling their own milk — in glass bottles (that’s the nostalgic part).

“You either have to find a niche that’s different or you have to get bigger, and we’ve gotten as big as we can,” Kathy said.

The dairy business has been “a lifelong process,” Alan said, but milk processing is a “new venture” meant to add profits to their operation.

The Hildebrands added a building at their dairy northwest of Junction City and equipped it with extra milk tanks, a pasteurizer, homogenizer, bottler, bottle washer, a small laboratory, office, breakroom and retail space.

The family partners began processing and bottling their own milk and selling it in 14 small stores from Council Grove to Abilene and Clay Center to Hillsboro, all within an hour’s drive of their dairy.

The milk tastes better in glass, Kathy said, and it’s no longer being done “by the big boys” in the business.

“That’s the way it used to be,” Dave said. The bottles are washed, sterilized and reused. Glass makes their business “greener,” which is another plus, he said. “There’s no throwing plastic away.”

The only difference is a one-time $2.75 deposit for each bottle.

“As long as you don’t break them, you don’t buy any more. You rinse them out and bring them back,” he said. “It’s premium milk here. A lot of milk doesn’t hit the shelf until it’s a week old. It’s a couple days for our milk.”

While glass is a return to the old, Kathy doesn’t anticipate that Hildebrand Dairy will deliver to the customers’ doorstep.

Nostalgia isn’t the reason why people buy milk in glass jars, said Steve West, director of West Country Mart in Abilene.

“People like the flavor of the milk better,” he said. They prefer it enough to pay nearly twice as much as for milk in plastic from large commercial dairies. Sales have been “better than what I thought they’d be,” West said.

The milk retails for $3 for a half gallon at the Hildebrands’ farm store, but the price varies at each location. Bottle deposits have been “no problem” with customers, West said. “The ones that use them knew they were going to have that.”

The dairy sells whole, 2 percent, low-fat and chocolate milk that is pasteurized to kill germs and homogenized to prevent the cream from rising to the top of the bottle. The Hildebrands also sell nonhomogenized milk that allows the cream to rise.

“When milk is homogenized, it diminishes the flavor and decreases the health benefits,” Kathy said.

West Country Mart sells all of the Hildebrand milk products, Steve West said, and customers like 2 percent best.

He expects the Hildebrands’ step back to glass bottles will capture and hold onto a share of the market.

“It’s not going to take over the big milk companies, but I think they’ll stay with it,” West said.

The Hildebrand family farm has 2,000 acres, where commodities and feed are produced for their herd of 150 Holstein cows that are milked twice a day.

Dave said the value-added operation is meant to capture a larger share of the retail dollar.

The National Farmers Union reported in late November that farmers and ranchers received 20 cents of the consumer’s food dollar. Using National Agricultural Statistics Service and Safeway stores price data, $1.42 of a $2.75 gallon of milk goes to the farmer.

“When you sell corn to the elevator, somebody is going to take the corn and make a profit out of it,” Dave said. “We’re trying to put the corn through the cows and get the profit out of the milk.”

While it’s too early for any solid numbers, Alan, the plant manager, is pleased with the results, so far. They are selling about a quarter of their production through their processing plant. The rest is sold in bulk to Central Equity Cooperative, Seneca, Mo.

The Hildebrands’ goal is to be processing most of their dairy’s milk within a year, Alan said. A key to that is landing a marketing agreement with a large grocery chain, such as Dillons.

The Hildebrand Dairy also sells its own “corn-fed, home-raised beef,” Kathy said, cheese from the Wiebe Dairy near Durham, Harvest Lark Bars from the Zumbrunn farm near Abilene, and Granny’s Homemade Mustard, from Hillsboro.

There is room for more products that are produced, prepared and packaged from their farm and the Junction City area. The Hildebrands own a large ice cream maker, Alan said, “but we’ll be making butter before we make ice cream.”

To increase profits before, the Hildebrands bought more land and cows. “We know what to do with them,” Kathy said. Adding value requires other skills.

“What we’re learning now is marketing and promotion,” she said.

The foray into milk processing may help ensure that more generations of Hildebrands can make a living on the farm. The farm currently employs seven nonfamily members.

With five children between the two couples, Dave said, “I think we could offer a future to them” on the farm.

“I talked to the neighbors. They’ve got a boy,” Dave said. “He sees the figures and says he’s going to town to work.”