“I think my parents are really happy and surprised. I don’t think Dad ever thought that after being a bachelor dairy farmer that anyone would want to marry him and do this. Girls didn’t like the smell of manure,” says Colleen Cruze Bhatti, laughing. “But they feel blessed. Life has been good to them.”
In fact, it’s been delicious. The Cruze name has become synonymous with ice cream around these parts, and if you’ve been into one of their four brick-and-mortar stores to buy a pint or a cone, you might’ve pictured the Cruze Farm Dairy Girl in her red gingham dress, updo, and red lipstick, a concept Colleen came up with as part of a business plan competition she entered (and won) during her senior year at the University of Tennessee.
Nearly everything about Cruze Farm came about because someone in the family decided to try something new: What if we bottled our own milk? What if we sold it in a store? What if we made ice cream? What if that sold in a store? What if we just see what happens?
The Farmer and the Cheerleader
In 1980, Earl Cruze was a single, 38-year-old dairy farmer when he met his future wife, Cheri, at the Ice Chalet in Bearden. She would not be put off by his line of work, and he was enamored by her spirit. They were married three months later.
“Mom has a gift for cheering people on and helping dreams come true,” says Colleen. “Dad was milking cows and working full time, but his dream was to bottle milk. So, they started bottling milk in 1981. It was my mom’s belief in my dad that he could do it, so he started building [the business] brick by brick.”
Like any ambitious small business owner would, the Cruzes tried various tactics to sell their newly bottled milk to the public. Home delivery plans didn’t work, nor did selling in larger grocery stores. So, they landed in a booth at a local farmer’s market on Washington Pike, where a Target store now sits. They also learned a recipe for ice cream from an Amish family, and for seven years and with three little kids in tow, the Cruzes sold their milk and ice cream to locals throughout the 1990s face-to-face.
“My brother, Glenn, was home with my dad milking cows, and my sister, Frances, and Mom and I were at the farmer’s market. I became passionate about that side – meeting people over ice cream,” says Colleen. “We closed that business eventually. We didn’t have a lot of employees, so it was a strain on the family to run it all. We kept bottling milk and selling some of it. I’m the youngest, and there were years when I was the only one at home.”
The Cruze Farm Girl
By 2005, Colleen was a freshman at UTK and had decided she didn’t want to return to the farm. She was turning the page and forging her own path. She moved on campus her freshman year but quickly learned the grass wasn’t greener for this agriculture major. She missed the farm and being outside, so she’d come home on the weekends to help her parents. By the time Colleen was a senior, she’d grown to view her family’s heritage through a new lens and had some burgeoning ideas about what Cruze Farm could be. She entered the Graves Business Plan Competition through the Haslam College of Business and won.
“Mom knew all along. She really was a cheerleader,” says Collen. “The Cruze Farm Girl aesthetic was developed during the business plan. My grandmother always wore a dress when she milked cows, and I always liked dresses, so my friends and I wore those gingham dresses at the farmer’s markets. People would comment on them, so it worked. Some people applied to work at the farm because of those dresses. The day I should’ve walked for my diploma in 2010, we made our first batch of Cruze Farm Girl ice cream.”
Colleen didn’t major in marketing, but she paid attention to what people were doing and what they responded to. She started a Facebook page, and she wore that red gingham dress in their spot at the Market Square Farmer’s Market, where they sold biscuits and ice cream every weekend from 2010 to 2016. While they’d experimented with ice cream flavors from the beginning–rum raisin, chocolate almond amaretto, blackberry–the Cruze Farm Girl branding process was now underway.
When Colleen met her future husband, Manjit, in 2010, she put her foodie boyfriend to work alongside her. The couple married in 2013, and Manjit would go on to embrace his role as a dairy farmer and currently oversees quality control of all Cruze Farm recipes. But back in the mid-2010s, the Cruze family was trying new things to see what worked. They planned various pop-up shops with short leases and were shocked to see widespread community support, even when they moved locations. Whatever they tried, the public responded, so they decided to look for something permanent.
“We bought an old historic house the Weigels used to own on Asbury Road. My sister is a realtor, and she said we had to see it. Our grandparents met on Asbury Road and used to farm on that road before it was built up as an industrial park,” says Colleen. “I knew we had to do it. We opened in 2017 and have done lots of work on the house each year as the business has grown.”
It's grown indeed. The following year, they opened the Gay Street location, followed by Sevierville in 2020 and Morristown in 2022. Patrons can buy bottled Cruze Farm milk at Three Rivers Market, Earth Fare, Horn of Plenty, and other small, locally owned grocery stores in and around Knoxville. The Cruze family has grown too, with 13 grandchildren between three Cruze kids and their spouses. The oldest three of the 13 milked cows all summer, and there’s space for the youngest ones when the time comes.
“There’s room for everyone to be involved in the family business, and honestly the kids have influenced everything we’ve done. Deciding to do pizza [at Asbury Road] was because that’s what our kids wanted to eat,” says Colleen. “I’m making sure there’s diaper changing stations in all the bathrooms. I want things to be comfortable for families.”
The Forever Farm
After Earl Cruze watched his childhood farm in Forks of the River give way to an industrial park, he realized how badly he wanted to protect the land at Cruze Farm. So, in 2005, the Cruzes put a conservation easement on 550 acres that can never be developed, therefore preserving the farm for their fifth, sixth, and future generations of dairy farmers.
“I think all the kids think they’ll work on the farm, but we don’t put pressure on them. They have to want it and earn it. It would never be given,” says Colleen. “They all think it’s so much fun, which is what I wanted–for us to have a business we enjoyed together.”
Today, the business plan is less about growth and more about depth. They love being a place where young people find their first jobs, a responsibility Colleen says they take seriously, teaching professionalism and personal growth.
The farm is still small too. With only 70 or so cows to care for, there are seven full-time employees, the same people who’ve been there for a decade. Since there can be a natural fluctuation in milk production, and there’s no pressure on the cows to produce a certain amount, the crew focuses on making enough ice cream to keep the stores going, and if there’s anything left over, they make cheese.
“We appreciate our community. Our business couldn’t be anywhere else besides East Tennessee,” says Colleen. “This community has been so supportive, and it’s been fun to see people make memories in our stores.”
Learn more at www.CruzeFarm.com.
“My brother, Glenn, was home with my dad milking cows, and my sister, Frances, and Mom and I were at the farmer’s market. I became passionate about that side – meeting people over ice cream.” – Colleen Cruze Bhatti
“Mom has a gift for cheering people on and helping dreams come true.” – Colleen Cruze Bhatti