Don't let anyone "string you along" (jmdn. hinhalten). The is more than just a "drop" in the bucket on a dairy farm. "We have a very big electric bill (Rechnung) here at the cheese factory and the farm pumping water, so we on the farm and the cheese factory."

When electricity bills began running dollars a month, Crave Brothers Dairy decided to take their cattle waste to "green energy". "The cows produce the manure." That manure, fermented of enzymes, releases methane gas, fuels engines that generate electricity. "Green energy is produced here. We offset (wettmachen) our electric needs for both our farm, , and in addition we supply enough for about 300 area homes."

The waste-to-energy process takes place , called a digester (Fermenter) that sits on the Crave Brothers' property. "We thought that this made a lot of sense: using our by-products, using the amount of bio-solids and the cheese factory to ."

The Craves invested in the project: a partnership with Clear Horizons, that specializes in green technology. But electricity isn't the only product the digester provides. the liquids from the remaining solids in the manure, fertilizer. "It's allowed us to be pretty much sustainable from a fertilizer standpoint, to eliminated commercial fertilizer purchases (Kauf) on our farm." The fertilizer is spread on the crops the Craves their cattle.

The sustainable (nachhaltig) process allows the Crave Brothers that Wisconsin is well known for: making cheese . "It goes into those big vats (Bottich) that hold 25,000 pounds of milk per vat. It's heated up in those vats to about 105 degrees where we add the rennet (Lab) , turns it into a large mass almost like yoghurt. And that’s cut into the cubes of curds (Bruch) and weigh (Molke)."

"George, tell me what happens on the finishing table." "Well, this where the curds and weigh come down out of the cheese vats. And they flow with the weigh, which is is the weigh, ten percent is just the curd. And then that comes down here. And we drain the weigh off (abfließen) of the table here with a screen (Sieb). You see the screen, it’s a big drain (Ausguss). And then the curd is left over. And then from here we load the curd into the mozzarella cooker that melts it to about 120 degrees, where it's very pliable (geschmeidig) and then we can mold (formen) it into the and shapes of mozzarella that we have the orders for."

"How many different types of products do you make?" "We make . We make , Mascarpone cream (Rahm) cheese, part-skim mozzarella or Queso Oaxaca farmstead (Bauernhof) signature (charakteristisch) cheese: Les Freres Fromage or French for ‘the brothers’ cheese.'" "So, of cheese do you turn out, say or a month?" "Well, let's just say today we're making about a 125,000 pounds of milk, and we get on the cheese this time of the year, we'll maybe get about a ten and a half percent yield. Today we'll make close to 14 to 15,000 ."

The have won a , something the brothers hope will inspire the next generation business. "That's our goal is to have anyone of the children, a herdsman (Viehhirt), crop manager, , business person, cheese operator and marketing. There's a here that we've created in this family business." And a chance to , one ball of mozzarella at a time. "It hasn't been any big master plan . It's always, 'What's next?', 'What are we gonna try and do in the ?’, ‘What do we need to do next week?’ And approach (angehen) our business."