Few businesses can say they got on their feet with the help of the Grateful Dead, Huey Lewis and Ken Kesey, but Springfield Creamery can. Creators of Nancy’s yogurt and other dairy products, this company has been an institution in natural foods in Oregon since the 1960s. That’s when Chuck and Sue Kesey, returning home to Springfield, Oregon (near Eugene) after college, started a business supplying returnable glass milk jugs to other creameries, and Springfield schools with milk. Initial help came from Fred Kesey, Chuck’s father and long-time manager of Eugene Farmers Creamery.

In 1969, Chuck and Sue realized the dairy industry was quickly changing – away from small, local creameries and into large, industrial operations. They knew they needed a niche to distinguish them in the market. That’s when one of their bookkeepers, Nancy Hamren, suggested they try making yogurt. Nancy had come to the Springfield Creamery through her friend Ken Kesey, Chuck’s brother and the well-known local author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Nancy had grown up making homemade yogurt with her grandmother and had been interested in natural foods ever since.

In 1970, the Springfield Creamery became the first to sell yogurt cultured with acidophilus, commonly used among health food enthusiasts who make their own yogurt. They never used sugar, cooked their own fruit, and used honey and vanilla for sweetening. They sold the yogurt in glass jars and five-gallon buckets at small natural food stores in Eugene, to favorable response. The yogurt expanded along the West Coast when Huey Lewis, not yet famous, and a friend volunteered to deliver the yogurt along their comic book delivery route. Soon stores were calling and demanding more of “that Nancy’s yogurt,” and the name stuck.

In 1972, however, business was rough and Springfield Creamery ran into financial difficulty. So Chuck traveled south to Marin County, California, and persuaded the Grateful Dead to put on a benefit concert to save Springfield Creamery. Tickets were printed on yogurt labels, and more than 20,000 people attended. This began a decade of annual concerts at the Springfield Creamery and helped the creamery gain a loyal following.

Springfield Creamery moved to a larger, 10-acre production facility in 1987 to help supply increasing demand. They now make 84 different products, including conventional and organic varieties of yogurt, kefir, cottage cheese, cream cheese, sour cream, and cultured soy yogurt. They never use artificial flavors or colors – only pure and authentic ingredients – and get all of their conventional and organic milk from local Northwest dairy co-op members, and of course it’s all rBGH-free. They still cook all of their own fruit, most of which is local, and sweeten it only with honey or kosher white grape juice concentrate. No stabilizers or thickeners are used, and they never knowingly use any ingredients that have been genetically modified.

Today, the Springfield Creamery is going strong, with Sue, Chuck and Nancy still at the helm. Sue and Chuck’s son, Kit, and their daughter, Sheryl, help with operations. Chuck’s cousin, Leonard, has been the pasteurizer since he was 18 years old, and he’s now 60. Chuck and Nancy taste every batch of yogurt to make sure it’s ready for cooling and selling.