“It’s delicious,” Keepers said of the Dairy Store products, adding he’s a fan of the Sesquicentennial Swirl. “And it gives some loyalty to (the university).”

The Dairy Store products currently use mixed milk from multiple sources, including MSU dairy centers, said Mat Haan, Pasture Dairy Center project coordinator at the MSU W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, or KBS, in Hickory Corners, Mich.

Haan said the Dairy Store slowly is moving toward using only milk from MSU dairy facilities. The first step in this process began earlier this month when the Dairy Store made a special batch of orange and raspberry sherbet and began the aging process of cheese from KBS Pasture Dairy Center milk.

A Dairy Store representative was unable to confirm or comment.

The KBS Pasture Dairy Center is one of only two facilities in Michigan that use both a robotics milking system and a pasture system where cows are allowed out of the barn, Haan said. The robotics milking system allows cows to choose their own time to milk and can collect health information on each cow. The pasture system allows cows who have been milked the correct amount of times in the day to graze
in an open pasture.

Although the new sourcing might not encourage students, such as Keepers, to go to the Dairy Store more than usual, it does give some students another reason to be proud to go to MSU.

“It gives a sense of security to know the products come from MSU,” Keepers said.