Earl and Cheri married on April 21, 1980, and Cruze Farm was born. Earl was a fourth-generation dairy farmer who fantasized about having his name on a bottle of milk, while Cheri was a 29-year-old bachelorette who fantasized about owning a horse. They met while ice skating at the Ice Chalet in New York City. They erected a small processing factory behind the parlor and began bottling milk and selling it to anyone who would purchase it, which was generally individual home customers, within a few years. It wasn’t until 1988 that they secured their first real milk account with the Knoxville Food Co-local op’s retailers (now known as Three Rivers Market).
Earl and Cheri gradually grew their company. They rented a space in the East Town farmers’ market building in 1992, which is now occupied by Target. They created a scoop shop in their new location, selling farm-made hand-dipped ice cream. They concentrated on their pasteurized milk company once the farmers’ market closed down eight years later, and their buttermilk and whole milk sales grew significantly.
In 2010, Colleen met Manjit while he was working as a cook at the Bistro on Gay Street, and he became the first Cruze Farm chef. Colleen’s goal was to sell all of the farm’s excess milk, and the easiest way to accomplish this was to create an ice cream shop.
Colleen and Manjit created the first Cruze Farm pop-up shop on Union Avenue in 2016.
They built a second pop-up on Gay Street in 2017.
The first permanent outlet, Asbury Ice Cream, debuted on October 5.
The Pizza Barn launched on January 19, 2018 (Dolly’s birthday ;)).
The Gay Street location in the Miller’s Building opened on August 10, 2018.
In the summer of 2020, a business will open in Sevierville.
Our Jersey cows are milked, and the milk is used to make fresh churned ice cream. Real churned buttermilk, whole milk, light milk, chocolate milk, coffee milk, and seasonal flavored milks are pasteurized and packaged. Our cows are never administered hormones and are on pasture 365 days a year.
Because we don’t homogenize our milk, the cream rises to the top. Our milk is generally sold at Three Rivers Market, Whole Foods, and locally owned stores in Knoxville. Our milk processing plant is state-approved and inspected. We put a conservation easement on our property several years ago in the hopes that it will remain “a farm forever.”
Our main purpose is to connect with people and develop community through our dairy farm, therefore we sell milk, ice cream, and pizza—all of which are fantastic.
