For the past 17 years, Newalta Dairy has been one of the largest dairies in Pipestone County. It is owned by the John and Berlinda Vander Wal family. The operation has two locations – one at 1125 71st St., west of Hatfield and the other on the County Line Road west of Edgerton. 

John and Berlinda Vander Wal immigrated from the Netherlands to Canada in 1989. They began with a 50-cow dairy in Lacombe, Alberta.  After growing their family and their dairy for a number of years, they started to run out of space for expansion.  

They began to look at building a new operation in the United States. They talked with builders in South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. In addition to their dream of owning a large dairy operation, the Vander Wals wanted their children to attend a Christian school, so that limited the locations they were looking at. 

When their oldest child was 14 and their youngest was 5, the Vander Wal family decided to move to the United States. They had met Dr. Kennedy with the Pipestone Veterinary Service and he introduced them to Bob Rice, who was an attorney that owned land. They also got to know Dr. Jay Bobb, who John said was very helpful in getting their new operation going. 

Rice was willing to part with some of his acres – in part because he also wanted to see growth within Pipestone County.  

The Newalta Dairy began with 600 cows and 10 employees. John said they chose the name “Newalta” in part for the word “new” in the title and in part because the middle letters “Wal” is their last name. (In the Netherlands, there are so many last names with Van and Vander, that they alphabetize names by the main last name.)  While on one of their drives between Alberta and Pipestone, John saw another business called Newalta and he thought the name would be appropriate. 

Last year, on June 1, the Vander Wals purchased County Line Dairy (CLD) from Mike and Sue Hulstein. The Hulsteins started milking in 1981. In 1987, they built a new tie-stall barn on their farm, which is about an 1/8 a mile north off County Road 1, otherwise known as the County Line Road. They milked about 50 cows then. 

In 1996, they expanded the dairy and built a new barn and parlor for milking 300 cows. This facility was located right on the County Line Road, adjacent to their home place. In 2006, they expanded again, building a second barn. The new capacity of the operation is about 500 to 550 cows. 

Last year, Mike and Sue decided they were ready to be done with running the dairy. Their three daughters were grown up. Cassie Rice is a veterinarian in Wisconsin. Alyssa and her husband, Joseph De Weerd, recently adopted a baby. Alyssa runs Muddy Paws pet grooming by Woodstock. Their daughter Carli is a nurse at Sanford Hospital in Sioux Falls. None of the girls wanted to run a dairy operation, so they decided to sell the operation to Newalta.  Mike is still involved in farming. He works on his own and may help Newalta in the future by raising heifers on his farm.

The owners of Newalta Dairy are John and Berlinda, their son Ian, and their daughter Alisha and her husband Trevor. Their daughter Jennifer and her husband Steve Landman operate a dairy by White, S.D. Their daughter Bernice is married to Ross Van Hulzen, an Edgerton-area farmer. Bernice helps Alisha with bookwork at the dairy.  Amy Jo is married to Riley Ruble and they live in Albert Lea where she works for Rabo AgriFinance. In 2020, each member of the family received their U.S. Citizenship.

With both operations, Newalta milks about 3,500 cows and employ 40 people full time. The herd is milked three times per day. There are four barns at the main location and two barns at CLD. Most of their milk goes to Agropur in Lake Norden, but about half the milk from CLD goes to Agropur in Hull, Iowa. All of the milk is made into cheese products.

The Vander Wals raise Holstein cows. At least that is their predominant breed. They do have a few Jersey cows that they acquired when they bought CLD. With that said, they have been starting to switch things up in the last five months. 

Ten years ago, Newalta started buying sexed semen so they could produce more heifer calves for their operation. However, that resulted in too many heifers. They have been breeding their extra heifers with Angus to get cross-bred calves that are worth more. 

John explains that in the last couple of years, there have been California dairymen who are wanting to relocate their operations to Minnesota. Those dairymen want to milk F1 Holstein/Jersey milk cows. An F1 cow is the first generation of crossbred cattle and are more likely to produce more milk with less feed. In the last five months or so, John has started to work on producing F1 cows so that he can sell them to the dairies that want them.  

In the cheese market, Jersey cows lack the yield necessary, but they do have other good milk components – higher fat and protein content for example. Holsteins are known for their milk volume, hence the desire to have a Holstein/Jersey mix.

After these cows give birth to F1 crossbreds, their second breeding will be with sexed semen to produce heifers and their final breeding will be conventional with a beef to produce a calf for market.

“We have not found a market for the F1s yet, but things change fast,” John said.