After almost 100 years in business, the iconic Queens dairy that provided milk cartons to New York City schools is closing up shop.
Advertisement
Company CEO Henry Schwartz, whose father and uncle started Elmhurst Dairy, says the plant is no longer profitable.
The dairy, now located on a 15-acre lot at 155-25 Styler Road, was started by brothers Max and Arthur Schwartz at their father’s farm on Caldwell Avenue in Elmhurst in 1919. “The family did so at a very high cost but is unable to continue to do so without ongoing losses”.
The dairy, which according to its website, supplies milk to more than 8,300 grocers and 1,400 public schools, is the last of about 20 milk processing plants in the New York City and Long Island area which all closed within the past 25 years, the company said.
The company will shut down its operations October 30.
The company said existing regulatory requirements played a major role in the decision, something elected officials acknowledged on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, that regulatory burden made it impossible for the company to compete with out-of-state vendors”, Comrie said.
Queens’ Elmhurst Dairy, the last operating dairy in New York City, has announced that it will be shutting down.
Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, said she would work with the mayor’s office to make sure any “void in jobs is restored either at the site or in the community”. The company eventually moved and expanded to a facility in Jamaica about 80 years ago.
The company has a 15-acre site where it received 25 to 30 tanker trucks of milk daily and stored in its 12 silos enough milk to feed New Yorkers for a day, the company said.
Advertisement
In the late 1940s, Percy Krout, Max’s brother-in-law, who ran another family dairy farm in Middle Village, joined the business. By 1948, the joint businesses became the Elmhurst milk plant. Elmhurst distributed more than 5.6 million quarts of milk a week to 11 million customers per week at its height.
