Yoder Dairies has been serving our community since 1929, when Eli and Elmer Yoder, two Amish farmers from Kempsville, Virginia, began what would eventually grow into our present day dairy. The Yoders needed an outlet for their dairy farms so they set up a small plant and began bottling milk. By 1931, they were required by the health department to begin pasteurizing their milk. They knew that this would be more than they could handle by themselves, so they drew up a charter and formed a co-op with all of the area Amish dairy farmers. The co-op built a large plant on Princess Anne Road and purchased trucks to replace their horses and wagons. The dairy specialized in delivering fresh dairy products to homes in the Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and Chesapeake areas.

In 1996, the co-op decided to dissolve and planned to shut down the dairy. Ken and Elsie Miller, feeling that home delivery was too important to disappear, bought Yoder Dairies just two weeks before it was due to close its doors. The business had a special meaning to the Millers, as Ken, his brother, father and grandfather had all worked for Yoder Dairies in the past. Today, family remains the binding force at Yoder; Ken and Elsie's daughter, Maria, is the General Manager and her husband, Bobby, is Maintenance Supervisor.

Truly blessed with a loving, wonderful family, Ken and Elsie have faithful employees as well. The entire staff stayed at Yoder Dairies when the Millers took over.

Yoder Dairies has experienced many changes since 1929. The two local dairies that supply our milk today produce more than the original 32 Amish farmers combined, but the freshness and purity of the milk has not changed. Our cows are not given any growth hormones to grow faster or produce more milk. If a cow is sick and requires antibiotics, the cow is removed from production until it is healthy and its milk tests clean of any medication.

We are proud to be the only home delivery dairy in the Commonwealth of Virginia. We deliver a wide variety of dairy and juice products to over 5,000 homes per week in Hampton Roads and Williamsburg. We recently added ice cream and will soon complete a new processing plant on Princess Anne Road. Though times have changed, our commitment to high standards of freshness, quality, and convenience has not changed since Yoder Dairies began in 1929. We are proud of our Mennonite heritage and will continue to uphold those values in our business.