Our Story
Our family (Carl H. Lindner Sr.) founded a small dairy in Norwood, Ohio in 1938, with the idea of providing people the ability to buy premium quality dairy products from his own store by cutting out the middle men and passing on the cost savings to the consumer. At the time, almost all milk was home delivered and paid for on a weekly or monthly basis.
During the depression, the entire family worked together to run several small milk and ice cream companies. The enterprising young children started their days at 4am, working long days with their father and attended night school to complete their formal education. All of these valuable life experiences provided a solid foundation for future business success based on hard, honest work and perseverance.
They worked together, dedicated to making Carl Sr’s idea a reality, with Carl Jr. running a milk route and Robert delivering eggs and poultry throughout Norwood. Together they fashioned cabinets and signs for the new store they named United Dairy Farmers in recognition of their valued milk suppliers.
Our UDF cash-and- carry retail was a first, as was the availability of milk in a gallon (home delivered milk was bottled exclusively in quarts). Our first day receipts at the store totaled a respectable $8.28!
Store expansion continued through the 60’s and 70’s, growing our store count to 30 owned and operated stores in and around Cincinnati, many of which were carrying expanded product lines of bread, cookies, lunch meat and cheeses to complement the selection of fresh dairy products. In the early 80’s the third generation of our family (Bob Jr, Jeff, Brad and David) became actively involved in the evolution of the UDF brands. Jeff and Brad, convinced that ice cream sales could be expanded significantly by launching a premium line, developed the Homemade Brand premium ice cream in 1982. It offered exotic flavors, packed full of high quality inclusions to make the best ice cream product we could.
Did you know that we were one of the first companies to produce Cookies ‘n Cream ice cream, a unique concoction of vanilla ice cream and chocolate cookie wafers? People magazine rated Homemade Brand Cookies ‘n Cream ice cream “Number One Exotic Flavor” in a 1984 competition. Over 890 flavors were submitted by 245 competitors nationwide. Today, Homemade Brand Cookies ‘n Cream are still made with real Oreo® cookies. We know how to keep a good thing going.
Even though Homemade Brand is now available and enjoyed in over 20 states, we still have the same simple approach from the very beginning: use the very best ingredients to make the very best ice cream. So, whether your favorite is a classic like Cookies ‘n Cream, a taste twirler like Cherry Cordial or a Seasonal Recipe Flavor like Peaches & Peaches, you’ll always get ice cream made with our utmost craftsmanship! Each of our team members are so proud of the personal care and attention that goes into the ice cream that we proudly stamp their name on the bottom of each container.
Crafting great ice cream is still our passion and we bring that love and dedication to our whole process: mixing and packing with precision, overseeing its shipping and stocking. We credit these outstanding achievements to Carl Lindner, Sr., whose boundless energy and drive was often reflected in an inspirational statement he shared with his children: “You can do anything you want to; the sky’s the limit”