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"we do everything by hand" ... proceeds to demonstrate large churning machine (: No, I know they're doing a much more manual process than most such factories.

"we do everything by hand" ... proceeds to demonstrate large churning machine (: No, I know they're doing a much more manual process than most such factories. I think even the Amish use automation for churning. For reference though, 380 tons is actually a smallish number. Seems France produces about 1000x that much in total, per year, not to mention other countries.

dhosek 4y ago
I was thinking the same thing. It’s a bit over a ton a day, which is 250 gallons of milk (well, probably a bit more assuming that it takes more than a pound of milk to make a pound of butter). Kind of like the scene in the first Austin Powers movie where Doctor Evil demands ONE MILLION DOLLARS! and the world leaders laugh.
- BenjiWiebe 4y ago
  It takes over a pound of cream to make a pound of butter. Whole milk -> skim milk + cream Cream -> buttermilk + butter
  - dhosek 4y ago
    Some quick googling said half a gallon of milk yields half a cup of butter so figure it’s 16:1 whole milk to butter, so that’s 4,000 gallons of milk not 250. A cow can produce 8 gallons of milk a day so we need 250 cows to support this butter production. The Google says 60–80 dairy cows to make a living so figure this represents three or four small dairy farms to support that production level.
megablast 4y ago
> 380 tons is actually a smallish number Um, did anyone think any different??
mrtksn 4y ago
By hand usually means using machinery to do something the traditional way. People can do very little without machines. The difference is that it’s not a mass production process that usually requires special chemicals and treatments to keep the ingredients in certain state to run high speed high yield process. It’s like the hand made toys that are actually made using power tools, knives, hammers etc. as long as you don’t alter the process but just get help from machines to speed up things or increase yields, it’s handmade.

dhosek 4y ago

I was thinking the same thing. It’s a bit over a ton a day, which is 250 gallons of milk (well, probably a bit more assuming that it takes more than a pound of milk to make a pound of butter). Kind of like the scene in the first Austin Powers movie where Doctor Evil demands ONE MILLION DOLLARS! and the world leaders laugh.

BenjiWiebe 4y ago
It takes over a pound of cream to make a pound of butter. Whole milk -> skim milk + cream Cream -> buttermilk + butter
- dhosek 4y ago
  Some quick googling said half a gallon of milk yields half a cup of butter so figure it’s 16:1 whole milk to butter, so that’s 4,000 gallons of milk not 250. A cow can produce 8 gallons of milk a day so we need 250 cows to support this butter production. The Google says 60–80 dairy cows to make a living so figure this represents three or four small dairy farms to support that production level.

megablast 4y ago

> 380 tons is actually a smallish number Um, did anyone think any different??

mrtksn 4y ago

By hand usually means using machinery to do something the traditional way. People can do very little without machines. The difference is that it’s not a mass production process that usually requires special chemicals and treatments to keep the ingredients in certain state to run high speed high yield process. It’s like the hand made toys that are actually made using power tools, knives, hammers etc. as long as you don’t alter the process but just get help from machines to speed up things or increase yields, it’s handmade.