Community Highlights: Meet Elizabeth & Jeffrey Turner of Shop Springs Creamery

Today we’d like to introduce you to Elizabeth & Jeffrey Turner. Them and their team share their story with us below:

The creamery is owned by Jeffrey and Elizabeth Turner. Jeffrey was raised on the Turner farm in the Shop Springs community and grew up milking cows with his dad, Tommy Turner. Before his father milked, his grandfather also milk cows on the same farm where we milk today. Elizabeth was also raised on a dairy farm in Corunna, Michigan where she was the fourth generation to raise dairy cattle. Both of the owners grew up with a love and passion for agriculture and dairy cows.

We started milking cows on December 9, 2015, at our home farm in Shop Springs (Lebanon). When we built the dairy we always had the vision to bottle our own milk. Jeffrey has dreamed of doing this since he was in high school.

We decided to open the creamery and take our traditional farming practices one step further to provide a local wholesome product that we could sell directly to consumers. All of the milk at Shop Springs Creamery comes from cows that we work with every day.

In the summer of 2019, we started construction of the creamery and began making and selling our own ice cream.

The following fall we started to bottle and sell our milk. We currently sell our milk and ice cream through our farm store and also at several local grocery and coffee shops.

We also sell other Wilson county produced products at the creamery – eggs, pork, beef, lamb, and goat. It is important to us that we provide our community with local, safe, and wholesome products.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The biggest challenge for us was COVID. We opened the doors in November of 2019 and only a few months later COVID struck; meaning we had to completely change the way we were operating the storefront side of the business.

Thankfully we installed two drive-thru windows that we were able to utilize when the inside was closed. After we opened the drive-thru we had cars lined down the road so we had to install a driveway to wrap around our building.

As you know, we’re big fans of Shop Springs Creamery. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
What sets you apart from others? — Our milk is different from store-bought milk because it is non-homogenized & we use a system of pasteurization that is called “vat pasteurization”

I would say we are best known for our ice cream flavors & quality – we regularly have 16-20 different flavors. I change them up throughout the year depending on the season. Some fan favorites have included Maple Bacon Pecan, Mackinac Island Fudge, Key Lime, and Christmas Cake. Our ice cream is considered premium ice cream so it is very smooth and thick.

We are most proud of the fact that we are “farm to table” — raise the cattle that produce the milk; we grow mostly all of the feed our cattle eat on our farm. It’s a very rewarding and fulfilling experience to hand a customer a product you created from start to finish.

What makes you happy?
What makes us happy is watching people enjoy our products and facilities with their families. In the fall we do a corn maze and in the spring we do many farm tours – we get joy from watching people learn more about agriculture and the dairy industry.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @ShopSpringsCreamery
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShopSpringsCreamery

Image Credits
J & S Photography and Autumn Mobley Photography