Vanderwende Creamery wins 2019 DBT Award!

Vanderwende Farm Creamery wins 2019 DBT Family Owned Business Award!
More than 300 people packed the DuPont Country Club on May 21 to honor 23 family-owned businesses as part of the Delaware Business Times’ 5th Annual Family Owned Business Awards.

Vanderwende Farm Creamery won the Small Family Owned Business Award. A long time small business in the state of DE, Vanderwende’s won the SBA Small Business of the Year three years ago as well.

Vanderwende has been working with the SBDC since 2011, and we were recently able to aid them in obtaining a wholesale contract with ShopRite. 

Vanderwende Farm Creamery is a three generation farm business. William and Ellen Vanderwende purchased the farm
in 1954, starting with six cows and $35. It has since grown to 4,000 acres and 225 registered Holstein milk cows. The Vanderwendes take great pride in producing quality milk and being good stewards to the land. Their environmental practices include cover crops and running a nutrient management programs. 

In 2012, they ventured into another business: ice cream. Today, in addition to the farm store, the Vanderwendes have a manufacturing and retail facility in Greenwood, a retail outlet in Dewey Beach, a wholesale business and two food trucks. 

Besides a niece in Florida working as a veterinarian and another niece in Wilmington working as a speech pathologist, the entire family lives within a fifteen-mile radius of the dairy farm “I always take into consideration what my roles my family wants and if one area of the business excites them more then another,” said Donna Vanderwende. “I really encourage my family to find the area of business they want to practice the most, because they ultimately have to want to come to work every day.”

Venderwende also involves itself in a number of community efforts, such as the Town of Bridgeville’s “Night Out” by donating $400 in product; supporting several local schools with ice cream donations; sponsored a basketball team and a soccer team; donated product to the local hospital golf tournament fund raiser; donated product to the annual Farm Bureau Milk Run 5K; supported the local 4-H clubs by “purchasing” a farm animal at the Delaware State Fair Auction, which is quickly donated back to the 4-H’er that raised the animal.