BELLVUE - It took 114 years but it's finally here.

Morning Fresh Dairy in Bellvue, a tiny hamlet just northwest of Fort Collins, is now offering yogurt among its many dairy products.

But not just any yogurt would do. Morning Fresh owner Rob Graves said he'll be offering a distinctively different yogurt that was developed on the other side of the world in Australia.

"It's nothing like we have here," said Graves, whose great-grandfather started the former Graves Dairy in 1894. "I never liked yogurt before, but I like this."

Graves said he was looking for a new product line - either ice cream or yogurt - and quickly made up his mind when he was introduced to a product made by Queensland Yogurt Co. in Queensland, Australia.

"I tried the yogurt and that was all it took," he said.

Dennis Teichmann and Grant Mathewson, employees of Queensland Yogurt, have been in Colorado for a month helping Graves set up yogurt production in a new 10,000-square-foot addition to Morning Fresh, which had been running out of space to process products from its 450-cow herd.

"It's a different style of yogurt," said Teichmann. "It's just thicker, sweet, and gets fruit added post-production."

The Australians, who will stay on in Colorado to make sure everything performs as it should and train equipment operators, say the product is extremely popular in their home country. It features such flavors as passion fruit, mango, honey, raspberry, blueberry and apple-cinnamon.

Mathewson said the product is called Noosa Yogurt, named after a popular beach town back home. He said it's been fun working with Graves and his staff in getting the yogurt production up and running.

"It's nice that it's a nice, medium-sized dairy and not some big multinational corporation," he said. "We can talk one-on-one."



Special cultures key

Special yogurt cultures are the key to the new product's unique taste. The yogurt is also all-natural, pro-biotic, gluten-free, 95 percent fat-free and made from milk sources with no added hormones. That fits nicely with Morning Fresh's reputation for all-natural dairy products, said Matt Lucas, dairy general manager.

"We wanted to offer something completely different, and it's really complementary to what we're doing," he said.

Lucas said the yogurt will have its debut with Morning Fresh's 7,000 home-delivery customers. "Our launching point will be through our home delivery customers," he said. "Hopefully, we'll be delivering it in the next few weeks."

Lucas said the yogurt will also be available on local store shelves, including Whole Foods and Beavers Market in Northern Colorado and Tony's Market in Denver, by the end of the year. Other stores, including Sprouts, have also expressed interest in stocking it, he said.

Yogurt production will occupy about one-third of the new 10,000-square-foot expansion to Morning Fresh, Lucas said. The remainder of the new space will be used to triple dairy cooler space and double production space.

Lucas said the dairy will not be adding more cows but will be adding more employees for the yogurt production. "We're hoping to add about 10 people in the next year," he said. "That's a great thing in this economy."

Graves said he's expecting to invest about $200,000 in the yogurt production and building expansion at Morning Fresh.