WAYNE COUNTY, PA — Chuck and Amy Theobald of Creamworks Creamery, located at Riverside Farm in Creamton, were named Innovators of the Year by the Wayne Economic Development Corporation (WEDCO) at its annual awards luncheon recently.

The four-year-old creamery, operated by the Theobalds and their children, is a multi-generational dairy farm. Realizing that they could not sustain their farming operation on the sale of milk alone, they set out to diversify their business model. After more than a year of research—visiting other creameries, learning about government requirements, designing a plan for the bottling facility’s layout to meet required regulations, processing mounds of paperwork, working out a financial plan and convincing a lender to back their enterprise—the Theobalds built a bottling plant in 2010 that meets Grade A qualifications. Among other advantages, this enables them to sell their milk out of state.

Today, Creamworks bottles more than 1,000 gallons a week, with a growing customer base, and Amy makes ice cream many times a week, as needed. In its long-range plan is the purchase of a bagging machine that will enable them to process five-gallon bags of milk to sell to institutional purchasers.