Sustainable, local and fresh: it fits perfectly with the core values of PANCAKES Amsterdam: and this is how a new collaboration was born. PANCAKES Amsterdam recently started working with ‘Mijn Melk’, which means that local produced milk is delivered directly from the farm to our restaurants! VHC delivers the milk to us with electric trucks, which we use in our pancake batter that same day.
Mijn melk
Four Dutch farmers are affiliated with Mijn Melk and the milk we use is supplied by Boer Reijer Rotgans. Besides local and fresh milk, Boer Reijer is known as one of the most sustainable milk producers in the Netherlands, with only 0.78 kg CO2-equivalent per litre, which is less compared to the national average of 1.10 kg. With prospects for the future, there are still many opportunities.
Together with the team of PANCAKES Amsterdam, we went on a work visit to our local milk supplier. We have seen how Reijer takes care of his 155 cows with love and dedication. Next to that, he genuinely focuses on sustainability and the future of an entrepreneur.
Family business
During the tour, we not only met Reijer, but also his parents and even his grandfather! It’s a real family business. Even at eighty, grandpa still works on the farm every day. We experienced everything up close, from the cows going out to pasture for the first time to the production process. Reijer uses automated feeding systems, allowing the cows to have food at any time and to be milked whenever they want, thanks to the milk robot. This is much better for the cows. It gives them more peace, which ultimately benefits the taste of the milk. Check out a recap of the day here!
Sustainable milk
But how did Reijer become so interested in sustainable milk production? During his student years, he wrote his thesis on how the farm could become more sustainable and more profitable. This is how Mijn Melk came into his life. Nowadays, consumers and the hospitality industry wants to know where their food comes from and how it’s produced. Reijer can truly show this process purely and transparently thanks to his own mini-dairy factory at his own property.
And it gets even better: not only is the milk sustainable, but also the way it’s transported to our restaurants. It is packaged in 50% RPET bottles and in convenient 10-litre bag-in-boxes with various connections, so they can be used on different milk machines
Reijer’s milk is like no other. A lot of milk from the supermarket undergoes heavy processing and standardization, which is at the expense of its taste. At Mijn Melk, there’s no tampering. The milk is heated, go, and brought directly to PANCAKES Amsterdam. This whole milk is not skimmed and is therefore even creamier in taste due to its natural fat content of only 4.5%.
Hungry?
You can understand that this makes our pancakes even tastier. Are you craving our pancakes already? Check out our picture menu here for a sneak peek.
