When the four Hansen brothers came back to the small family dairy farm in Hudson, Iowa, which had operated since 1864, things needed to expand. So, in 2004, the family built its own on-site creamery to create a branded line of non-homogenized milk. A year later, they expanded the brand to include ice cream. And the business just kept expanding, becoming one of the area’s best-known local brands.
Jordan Hansen shares the family’s amazing story on the latest episode of Grow Getters, a new podcast about agriculture’s most inventive side hustles. Hansen’s Dairy has taken ‘side hustle’ to a whole new level. Beyond their line of milk and 20+ flavors of ice cream, they now offer butter, cheese curds and even opened a couple of branded retail shops in nearby Cedar Falls and Waterloo.
“We’re blessed that we have 150 milking cows and they are supporting five owner families and about 60 total employees,” Jordan tells Grow Getters host Davis Michaelsen. “If they had not made this decision 20 years ago to start processing our own products, it would be quite different. We put ourselves on the map.”
Most people in northeastern Iowa don’t need a map to find the seven-generation farm. They’ve been there already for the Hansens’ popular agri-tours. These tours were the family’s first side hustle, starting back in 2002. When Jordan’s husband, Blake, decided to mix a few kangaroos with the usual farm animals, visitors started lining up. Last year, the farm hosted nearly 9,000 guests.
Today the family’s closed herd of purebred Holsteins, each one with a name, drives a multi-level business. A few years ago, the family added Wagyu-Holstein beef cows, which are born and raised on the farm. The product lineup expanded to include filet, New York strip, ribeye, sirloin, ground beef and summer sausage as well as beef sticks and jerky.
All of the products can be ordered online but are only available for pickup at the retail outlets. “We’re pushing forward that ‘buying local’ movement,” Jordan says. “At both our stores we also sell a lot of products made by other local producers.”
Proving that necessity is, indeed, the mother of invention, the Hansen family’s inventive side hustles have turned a small farm into a successful, diversified business that’s well positioned for the next generation to inherit someday.
