An eye-catching sign points the way to Sunrise Dairy in Crossville.
The future looks bright at Sunrise
Family-owned dairy farm and creamery near Crossville garners big accolades
Story and photos by Page Haynes
Freshly stocked milk, butter, and ice cream from Sunrise Dairy in Crossville are all the rage around Cumberland County and neighboring areas. The family-owned dairy operation offers all-natural, farm-fresh products to Middle and East Tennessee consumers on-site at their creamery along with 80 to 100 wholesale and retail stores throughout the region.
With 39 years in the milk business, Sunrise Dairy’s high-quality products are made with simple, real ingredients for that down-home flavor. They do not use growth hormones on their cattle, and customers can purchase their milk in specialty glass bottles. The Mast family started the business just over 40 years ago and added the creamery in 2016.
“It started out as a partnership, but in 2020 my brother-in-law decided to follow a different career path, and my dad left in 2022,” said Tim Mast, who, along with his wife, Anna, is a longtime customer of Cumberland Farmers Cooperative. “So that left me with everything, and I’m keeping it going with the help of my employees. They’re the true heroes.”
Sunrise Dairy processes around 4,200 gallons of milk per week, using a combination of Jersey and Holstein cows. In addition to bottling and selling whole, skim, chocolate, and strawberry milk, the creamery, which is managed by Ed Hofknecht, produces butter and a variety of flavors of ice cream. Additional products, including farm eggs, pork and beef from the farm’s livestock, plus baked goods, honey, sorghum, and homemade jellies, are offered on site at their small grocery store that fronts the creamery. Customers can watch employees work in the creamery on bottling days through a large, glass window in their store.
“All the milk that’s produced on the dairy comes to the creamery, and we process it here,” says Tim. “We bottle six different kinds of milk, plus buttermilk. In the wintertime, we make butter because we have extra cream due to not as many people wanting ice cream. We make a lot of ice cream base [both soft-serve and hand-dipped] year-round for ourselves and other customers. We also freeze ice cream for our store, packaging it in pints, half-gallon, and three-gallon tubs for hand-dipping.
“Ice cream has become a significant part of our operation,” he adds. “Back in 2016, we weren’t even thinking about doing ice cream — we were just trying to get off the ground. Today, I have two delivery trucks on the road four days a week. We have lots of restaurants, little country stores, and ice cream shops buying our milk and our ice cream base. Most of our milk products are sold wholesale to grocery and other stores. But the ice cream sales go way up when it warms back up. We’ve found that you need to have sunshine to sell ice cream.”
The creamery operates with a small team of family members and local employees, with Tim's daughter Heidi and her friend Chloe working in the bottling and ice cream production. Tim’s cousin, Eunice Mast, works at the creamery as well, cooking and hand-rolling waffle cones for their 16 flavors of scrumptious ice cream. She also keeps busy placing Sunrise Dairy stickers by hand on products and checking out customers who file in and out of the small business, their bags filled with locally made products from the Masts and nearby producers.
When she’s not checking out customers at the creamery, Eunice Mast cooks and hand rolls waffle cones for the creamery’s 16 flavors of scrumptious ice cream.
Tim Mast shows off some of his young replacement heifers at the dairy. Although the family began the dairy in 1985 with Holsteins, they have gradually added Jerseys to the herd because it takes a lot of cream to produce ice cream. “Our herd now consists of about two-thirds Jersey, one-third Holstein and it makes a good blend and amount of milk,” Tim says.
All this production wouldn’t be possible without the stars of the show — the cows. Tim says they started with Holsteins but when they began making ice cream, noticed that the base required a lot of cream, so they started adding Jerseys to the herd. Holstein cows are known for their high milk yield but produce milk with a lower milk fat content. Jerseys produce milk with a higher solids content, including fat and protein, containing 4.5% to 5.5% milk fat as opposed to Holstein milk that typically ranges from 3.6% to 3.8%.
“Our herd is comprised of about two thirds jersey and one third Holstein, and we plan to leave it there,” says Tim. “It just makes a good blend and amount of milk for our purposes.”
Herdsman John Farmwald milks the cows twice a day, at 4:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., and nephew Josiah Mast feeds the 90-cow herd twice a day. They utilize a double-six parlor, so 12 cows can be milked simultaneously. Tim says they keep their best calves for replacement heifers and either sell or butcher the remaining stock.
Since the business has grown, Tim says it’s now “bigger than one man and takes a whole village to keep everything going.” He praises his dedicated employees for all they do daily to keep the dairy running. He says the work is hard but fulfilling.
“Overseeing the dairy, creamery, and grocery store is rewarding,” said Tim. “Having people appreciate your product is probably the most satisfying part. I opened an email this morning that said, ‘I found your delicious milk! Where can I buy it?’ And, of course, I enjoy farming anyway, just working with animals and the land.”
Sunrise Dairy products proudly bear the Department of Tennessee Agricultural Seal on their label. This not only ensures that consumers are getting a quality product but also that the products are produced and bottled locally in Tennessee. They are also listed as a Pick Tennessee Products vendor.
The next time you take a drive through Middle or East Tennessee and stop at a local grocery store or ice cream shop, look for fresh dairy products from Sunrise Dairy. Just a few of the ice cream shops using their base are Lazy Cow Creamery in Cookeville, the Sugar Queen and the Moonshine Mountain Cookie Company in Knoxville, and Hattie Jane’s in Columbia, Murfreesboro, Franklin, and Nashville.
Sunrise Dairy’s creamery is located at 574 Bud Tanner Road in Crossville. Their hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. CDT (4:30 p.m. CST). Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, visit their facebook.com/sunrisedairycrossvilletn or call them directly at (931) 277-3777.
Kallie Whittenburg, showroom manager at Cumberland Farmers Cooperative in Crossville, enjoys a double scoop of homemade ice cream on a hand-rolled waffle cone at Sunrise Dairy Creamery.
Jersey and Holstein calves are fed Co-op 17% Calf Starter/Grower (#308) as a good foundation to keep them healthy and thriving.
Heidi Mast works diligently to keep half gallons of milk rotating and filling with milk while using a filling machine that precisely meters the milk into pre-made plastic jugs.
Customers Marcia Buck of Crossville and Kathy Ackerman of Syracuse, New York, purchased cheese, jelly, and ice cream during a recent visit to the creamery.
The creamery operates with a small team of family members and local employees, with Tim's daughter Heidi, on right, and her friend Chloe working in the bottling and ice cream production.
Sunrise Dairy processes around 4,200 gallons of milk per week, including whole, skim, strawberry, and chocolate milk. Half-gallon milks in printed, glass containers are sold in the on-site creamery store as well as in local grocery stores throughout Middle or East Tennessee and are very popular sellers.
By Page Haynes,
Contact phaynes@ourcoop.com