Zen and the art of milk delivery

It's early in the morning in Biltmore Village, and Jonathon Flaum, Soto Zen Buddhist monk in practice and milkman by trade, is sitting in a small, hot office in an industrial warehouse.

It's a far cry from where he began his business about four years ago, a comparatively roomy space behind his North Asheville house, cool, breezy and lined with bookshelves.

There Flaum, who has an M.A. in religious studies from Florida State University and an M.F.A. in playwriting from the University of Southern California's School of Drama, dreamed up a business plan for a venture his grandfather would recognize.

"I wanted to be an old-school milkman, kind of like that guy in the picture there," he said, pointing to a glossy Farm to Home Milk poster, a man in traditional milkman garb, a Gandhi phrase written in the sky above: “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”

The life of a milkman attracted Flaum for its seeming simplicity. The simple act of delivering milk, meat and eggs fit in with the tenets of Soto Zen, which requires its followers to live in the moment.

"Whatever we thought about the night before, whatever we have to do later, whether there are other things going on, it really doesn't matter," he said. "We have to get the milk to Buxton Hall, we have to get the milk to Vortex, we have to get the milk to High Five."

Flaum never intended to branch out from home delivery to wholesale. But businesses, like people, change as they grow out of infancy. "There's no manual," said the father of two. "You don't know what to expect."

Today, the vast majority of Farm to Home Milk's accounts — some 95 percent — come from Asheville-area restaurants and cafes. Buy a latte at Trade and Lore Coffee on Wall Street, a milkshake at Farm Burger, and you're likely sipping milk Flaum collects himself from Wholesome Country Creamery, an Amish dairy in Hamptonville, N.C., where a family of 10 manages and milks the herd.

That family, the Hostetlers, turn out the kind of milk you don't often see, ringed at the top by a fat cap of cream. Flaum also distributes milk from Maple View Dairy, a sixth-generation family farm just outside of Chapel Hill with a similarly lightly processed style.

But Flaum's learning that, even though he's had to rent this warehouse space, add a second refrigerated truck and use a pick-up truck in a pinch to keep up with demand, he's really not all that far from where he started, even as he finds himself in the unusual position of pulling together a new product for 36 Whole Foods stores across the Southeast.

Wholesome Country Creamery now makes and packages goat milk yogurt, a product Flaum delivers to Whole Foods' Georgia warehouse in rather large quantity. It's a giant step into wholesale distribution for a door-to-door milkman.

"We started going house to house, one bottle at a time, and yesterday we were going down to the Whole Foods South Distribution warehouse in Braselton, bringing five pallets of goat yogurt," Flaum said. "Stuff like that is strange, but it's coming from the same thing — people have a hunger for something authentic in their food."

It's a major coup for Flaum, even if it wasn't in the business plan. But not every entrepreneur is cut from the same cloth. There are those who set a straight business course and follow it to the best of their ability, and those who go with the flow as changes dictate.

Flaum, who founded the WriteMind Institute for Corporate Contemplation, a corporate consulting company where he challenged businessmen to work creatively, belongs to the latter group. "I know what business strategy is, I just don't follow it in a certain way," he said. "I want to follow the truth of what's happening in the moment and put my effort there and trust that the universe is going to respond with its grace to my effort."

It's that grounded approach that struck Mike McCarty, chef and partner at The Lobster Trap and Flaum's first wholesale account. "We're all busy, and it's hard sometimes to find that balance point," McCarty said. "He uses that to guide him throughout the days, hours and minutes."

Searching for local and regional products to add to the menu, McCarty read a story about Farm To Home Milk, and asked Flaum to consider wholesale delivery.

The chef then joined Flaum on one of his weekly, eight-hour round trips to Maple View Dairy, a journey that began at 4 a.m. and ended with The Lobster Trap counting itself a devout customer. Now the downtown seafood restaurant uses Maple View Farm dairy products in its lobster macaroni and cheese, bar applications and grits from Peaceful Valley Farm, also in North Carolina.

Word of Flaum's products spread among local business owners. Now, Flaum's milk is available at dozens of markets and local restaurants, including big-name venues like The Admiral and the whole-hog Buxton Hall Barbecue, which is lately steeped in accolades from national press.

Trade and Lore Coffee on Wall Street uses Farm to Home Milk-distributed Wholesome Country Creamery dairy products in lattes, hot chocolate and even as coffee creamer.

Co-owner Sarah Winkler said the milk has its own peculiarities since it's a natural, non-homogenized product. That's why she asked Flaum to train her staff on the science of the milk.

The main takeaway? Natural milk requires those who work with it to be in the moment.

"Every batch is slightly different, so you have to change your steaming techniques sometimes," she said. "You really have to pay attention to it. If you don't shake it up perfectly, you'll end up with a big glob of fat on the top. There's all these tricks to using real milk."

Even if sometimes customers blanch at globs of cream floating in the coffee creamer, most everyone comes around to the fact that it's a natural byproduct of real milk, Winkler said.

"I think people really appreciate it just the same as going to a restaurant and knowing that tomato was grown four miles away," she said. "You don't get that in many cities."

Vortex Doughnuts' Ben Myers echoed the sentiment. Farm to Home Milk might be more expensive to use in doughnuts and coffee drinks, but Myers said he's willing to pay for the quality of the milk he blows through to the tune of 75 gallons a week.

Not only that, but Myers, whose doughnut and coffee shop is a neighbor to Buxton Hall on Banks Avenue, is willing to make what he calls a long-term investment in the local food community.

"There's an underlying compassion that he embodies," Myers said of Flaum. "We're hoping to be part of something that's moving away from the bottom line-driven way of doing business and reengage with people's compassion. That way of doing business makes a lot more sense in the long-term."

Flaum has found that locally focused spirit attracts many of his former door-to-door customers, who he now sees sipping coffee at Trade and Lore, Vortex Doughnuts and High Five Coffee.

"All of us in this community are seeking that connection to purity in our food," Flaum said.

Purity, he said, is not necessarily in an 'organic' label, but rather in knowing where food comes from.

"We share in that feeling of wanting to be intimate with our food," he said. "And in being more intimate about our food, we learn to be more intimate with each other's live's. It's a nice way to make a living."

More about Farm to Home Milk at www.farmtohomemilk.com.