Have you ever seen the cows that provide the milk you are drinking, or milk for the cream in your cream puff, the custard in your éclair? Well, you can, and you can even watch the cows being milked, at Wright’s Dairy Farm & Bakery in North Smithfield.
Established in 1900 at the same location where it is today, Woonsocket Hill Road, the working dairy farm is a family-run operation that specializes in fresh milk, homemade pastry with whipped cream made on the premises, and an assortment of other culinary delights, including 15 varieties of muffins, personalized cakes for special occasions, and hermits, an old-fashioned New England cookie you can order on the Internet. Everything is made right at the farm from scratch.
But the cows are the key to Wright’s.
The 150 Holsteins are milked twice a day, at 4 a.m. and 3 p.m., after which the milk is pasteurized, homogenized and bottled for sale in the retail store. Skim milk is the most popular seller, but the dairy also offers chocolate milk and coffee milk. Visitors are welcome to watch farm workers milk the cows from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. daily.
“We have a viewing window that looks out into the milking parlor,” said Elizabeth Dulude, office manager. “People love to bring their kids to see the cows.” Often, those moms and dads first came to see the cows when they themselves were children.
Dulude said the dairy is in the process of building a new milking parlor that should open later this year.
In 2007, Wright’s was named the Outstanding Dairy Farm of the Year by the Rhode Island Green Pastures Committee, part of a New England group made up of state and federal agricultural agencies and farm organizations.
A cow provides nearly 8 gallons of milk each day, or enough to quench the thirst of 100 people, according to “Cow Fun Facts” on the farm’s Web site, www.wrightsfarmdairy.com. In order to produce all that milk, a cow eats a lot – approximately 118 pounds every day – and drinks about one bathtub full of water, too. But the cow can digest it all, since a cow has four stomachs.
By the turn of the last century, when automobiles were few and far between, founder George Wright was delivering milk in cans to nearby houses. His son, Ernest Wright, in the 1930s built up the home delivery business, with milk and cream sold in glass bottles rather than cans.
Today, his son, Edward Wright, is in charge of the operation, assisted by his four children, their spouses and even a granddaughter – a fifth-generation Wright, Rachel Brong. Edward Wright’s children who work at the dairy today are Dulude, Ellen Puccetti, Jennifer Roberts and Clayton Wright.
After Edward Wright acquired the business in the 1970s, he discontinued home delivery and opened a retail store at the farm, which was expanded into a bakery in 1976. He and his wife at the time, Claire Wright, came up with a winning plan for the heavy cream left over when skim milk is made – they started using it in cream puffs made on-site.
The cream puffs proved so popular that soon Wright’s was offering customers all kinds of cream concoctions, such as cream pies, zeppoles (in season) and éclairs. “We make our own éclairs,” Dulude said. “We make our own custard, our own shells and our own frosting. Eclairs are one of our top sellers.”
Other Wright’s favorites are the meltaways, sticky cinnamon buns covered in walnuts that are best when heated with butter on top, and hermits, which Dulude described as “a very popular old-fashioned New England cookie, with a rich molasses taste and raisins.” Hermits are the only item from Wright’s that can be purchased online.
Bakery sales in recent years have outpaced milk sales, and the farm has 18 full- and part-time bakers at work. The bakers, however, do take two weeks off during the year, in January and July, when the shelves of homemade pastries become sparse, so customers in those months are advised to call ahead for exact vacation dates. Wright’s does only retail business, no wholesale, and Dulude estimated that about 800 customers patronize the establishment every day. Hours of operation are Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sunday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed on Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter.
Wright’s Dairy Farm has no connection at all to Wright’s Farm Restaurant, well known for its family-style chicken dinners and located in Burrillville. •
company profile
Wright’s Dairy Farm & Bakery
OWNER: Edward Wright
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Dairy farm
and retail bakery
LOCATION: 200 Woonsocket Hill Road, North Smithfield
EMPLOYEES: 50
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1900
ANNUAL SALES: WND
