Dan and Debbie's Creamery

About

Dan & Debbie's Creamery is a family-owned and operated business providing farm fresh dairy products to the community. Your milk comes from a good place.

Story

Dan & Debbie's Creamery was founded in 2015.

Dan Takes was the first of six born into the Takes family in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. After graduating from Kennedy High School he continued working along side his dad as a carpenter. It was only a few years after graduating that he met Debbie at a local pool hall.

Debbie Schropp was born and raised on a farm near Swisher, Iowa. Upon graduating from Prairie High School, Debbie went on to Cosmetology School to become a hairstylist. Shortly after, she opened up her own hair salon in Swisher, IA called Deb’s Hair on Tap.

During Debbie and Dan’s courtship, Dan would go over to Debbie’s parents house to help her dad on the farm. Little did she know that Dan would fall in love with farming and she would be hanging up her scissors and capes to go back to farming.

Over the course of the next 15 years a lot of things changed for the Takes Family. After child number four they purchased an old farm house with a lot of land just outside of Ely, Iowa. They grew their beef cattle herd and sheep herd for a few more years along with two more family members! After the youngest was out of diapers the couple started exploring dairy farming. It didn’t take long to break ground to build a milking parlor on their land. On October 29, 1998, the family milked their very first group of cows in their new facilities.

Only a year or two after the dairy operation was in full swing and continuously growing, Dan started looking into other small dairy farms that processed their own milk. The idea came and left the table several different times over the course of the last decade, though the idea was always in the back of Dan’s mind.

In 2013 the old Vavra Lumber Yard in Ely was on the market. Eventually, Dan and Debbie went to look at it and it wasn’t long that they made a offer on the space. The building was completely renovated and is now home to Debbie & Dan’s Creamery providing farm fresh dairy products to the corridor.