South Mountain Creamery has expanded its home delivery service into North Carolina and added more routes in Virginia, increasing the footprint of the Frederick County dairy business.

“I’m feeling good. I mean, it was the right move,” CEO and co-owner Tony Brusco said.

South Mountain Creamery’s farm was started in 1981 by Randy and Karen Sowers, Brusco’s in-laws. It had 100 cows.

The creamery itself was built in 2001 with the first Grade A milk plant on-site in the state, Brusco said.

The creamery, which is on Bolivar Road near Middletown, produces its own milk, butter and ice cream. Milk is bottled on site.

It also produces eggs and beef, he said.

The creamery offers home delivery.

“In the very beginning, our first week of deliveries, we did 14 deliveries, just basically right near the creamery …,” Brusco said.

This year, the company added the Raleigh, North Carolina, and Hampton Roads, Virginia, areas to its delivery markets. Raleigh is the company’s first move into North Carolina.

Other delivery areas are in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Delaware.

The creamery serves about 25,000 homes, Brusco said, making over 10,000 deliveries every week.

To meet the demand, the creamery also pairs with other local creameries and mom-and-pop shops to supply customers with products such as breads, jams, jellies and produce.

The creamery operation decided to expand after Oberweis Dairy, an Illinois-based dairy company, filed for bankruptcy, leaving the market in the North Carolina and Virginia areas open.

“We basically hired their staff, we bought the home delivery trucks that they were already operating under, and assumed their warehouse leases,” Brusco said.

South Mountain Creamery takes its products to the two new warehouses. Products are then driven to customers in the area, he said.

It is adding vendors from these new distribution areas to its catalogs to bring local products to customers in those areas.

Working with those local vendors falls in line with its values of customer service and the importance of buying local, he said.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, big grocery stores slowed down due to their extensive supply chains. But South Mountain Creamery and other local creameries have a short enough supply chain and were nimble in the changing landscape, Brusco said.

And even though the creamery is expanding its footprint, it still has close relationships with its customers, Brusco said.

Often, if a customer asks a question, a person from the creamery answers directly, he said.

“We’re trying to build a community. [We]’re trying to build a sustainable local food system,” he said. “And so that that requires [us] to embrace the local food market.”