SOMETIMES, IT TAKES FRESH COWS TO MAKE FRESH MILK

NORWALK, Conn., December 13, 2006 – Stew Leonard’s slogan, “you’d have to own a cow to get fresher milk,” might be changed to “it takes fresh cows to make fresh milk,” after the dairy stores’ attempt to make a television advertisement at their dairy farm in Ellington, Conn., shows in a tongue-in-cheek way that while they may make great milk, it’s not as easy to make a great commercial.

“We wanted to highlight that our milk arrives fresh every day to our stores straight from our dairy farm, where it is then pasteurized and packaged in our Norwalk store dairy plant, right in front of customers,” said President and CEO Stew Leonard, Jr. “We thought, what better way to show that our milk goes from farm to shelf in as little as six hours, than to film at our dairy farm? Apparently, the cows did not get the script.”

While Stew eventually got enough footage to make a serious commercial, the outtakes from the shoot proved too comical not to compile into a 30-second spot. When Stew showed both commercials to team members and friends, the consensus was to run with the more humorous outtakes version.

“The outtake commercial demonstrates that while Stew Leonard, Jr. takes his products and customer service seriously, he’s not afraid to poke fun at himself,” said Harvey Hoffenberg, President of Propulsion in New Canaan, Conn., who produced the commercials. “Whenever you do a shoot with animals, there is always an element of uncertainty, but the cows were particularly uncooperative the day we were filming. You just can’t script this stuff.”

The commercial is posted on the company’s web site at www.stewleonards.com or on YouTube.com under “Stew Leonard’s Dairy Outtakes.”

About Stew Leonard’s
Stew Leonard’s, a family-owned and operated fresh food store founded in 1969, has three stores in Norwalk and Danbury, Conn. and Yonkers, N.Y., with a fourth store planned to open in early 2007 in Newington, Connecticut. The company was named among FORTUNE magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work for in America” for the past five consecutive years. For more information, visit Stew Leonard’s website at www.stewleonards.com.