ELLINGTON, CONN., June 30, 2005-- In an awards ceremony today at Stew Leonard's Oakridge Farm in Ellington, Connecticut, F. Philip Prelli, Connecticut Department of Agriculture Commissioner, presents Stew Leonard, Sr., founder of Stew Leonard's dairy store, with the Dairy Farm of Distinction Award.

The Connecticut Farm Beautification Program bestows this award to outstanding dairy farmers for keeping well maintained farms and producing high quality milk. Farms nominated for the award must have passed all state inspections for the previous year and the milk must meet state and federal quality requirements. This is the 20th year of the Dairy Distinction Awards and Stew Leonard’s Oakridge Farm is the only recipient of the award this year. Also present at the awards ceremony were: Senator Tony Guglielmo; First Selectman of Ellington, Dennis Milanovich; Representative Ted Graziani; President of Oakridge Farm, Vern Bahler; Oakridge Farm Manager, Dave Hartford; and Stew Leonard’s Dairy Plant manager, Craig Hartmann.

Stew Leonard’s Oakridge Farm is owned by the Bahler family, who milks their herd of 660 Holstein cows, producing more than 5,800 gallons of milk daily exclusively for Stew Leonard’s. The milk is then transported to Stew Leonard’s, Norwalk, Connecticut dairy plant, located in the heart of the family-owned food store, where it is pasteurized, homogenized and packaged right in front of the customer. Stew Leonard’s has the largest in-store dairy plant in the country, packaging 90 half-gallon cartons per minute and over 10 million half-gallon cartons per year.

Stew Leonard, Sr. became famous for his slogan, “You’d have to own a cow to get fresher milk!” because the milk which customers buy at his stores has gone from farm to shelf in as little as six hours.