Kawartha Dairy Limited

Although it has grown tremendously from its early days, it remains headquartered in Bobcaygeon, Ontario, where it was founded.In 1937 Jack and Ila Crowe took a leap of faith and bought a small dairy in Bobcaygeon.

Jack had learned the trade while working for Oshawa Dairy but the newly renamed Kawartha Dairy didn’t bear much resemblance to that larger big city firm. At that time it consisted of a small, simple three room building, where the cold storage area was cooled with ice cut from the lake. Local farms provided the milk which was picked up in 80lb stainless steel cans by wagons in the summer and sleigh in the winter. In those days, all of the milk was delivered to homes by horse or to cottages by boat. The business continued to grow and in 1942 Jack and Ila bought one of the other dairies operating in Bobcaygeon. At this time, Kawartha Dairy did not produce ice cream but that would change in the mid ’50s when Jack went back to school to learn the craft. It was a shrewd business decision, but even Jack likely had no idea how beloved Kawartha Dairy ice cream would become in the years ahead.

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