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The Towel Tote is a Dairy Expo success story

John F. Oncken
Correspondent for The Capital Times  —  10/10/2008 7:23 am

It was 1994 when Cheryl Mohn set up her first booth at World Dairy Expo in Madison. She remembers the wind blowing through the tent that was far from airtight, the water running across the blacktop floor (really the parking lot) and her efforts to sell the "Towel Totes" she had sewn together the prior week.

The Minnesota dairy farmer had brought 200 of her Towel Totes to Dairy Expo with hopes she might find some interest among fellow dairy farmers in buying her idea. She didn't need much space -- she just had the one product. In fact, her new company with the name Udder Tech shared a booth with another small company.

Fifteen years later, the just-completed 2008 World Dairy Expo saw Mohn and her Udder Tech, Inc. exhibit in the Arena building with a display three booths wide and often times crowded with people waiting to buy her much-expanded line of products aimed at helping make the cow milking process easier.

A lot has happened to the Mohn family of Lakeville. Minn., in the past 15 years. It's a success story for sure, but a story of success that has not markedly changed this dairy farm family.

"In 1994, the Mohns -- Cheryl, Bruce and their children Brent, Angela and Dana -- were milking 60 cows in Lakeville, which is just south of the Twin Cities. As a part of the milking process, Cheryl was using paper towels and two kinds of teat dip.

The problem was that she found herself running back and forth to a cart in the barn aisle behind the cows to get paper towels and the bottles of teat dip. It struck her that there had to be a better way to get away from all that running and wasting time.

So she did something about it!

As a long time seamstress -- she was a home economics graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Stout and a home economics teacher -- she sat down at the sewing machine and created a small apron that could hold a roll of paper towels and a couple of bottles of teat dip. The "Towel Tote" was born.

Neighborhood dairy farmers heard about the new idea and wanted their own Towel Totes. Mohn did some advertising and she was in business.

Mohn sewed up 200 Towel Totes in her kitchen and made the trip to that World Dairy Expo in 1994. She hoped she could sell some, but her husband Bruce warned her not to be disappointed if she didn't sell them all.

"I think I sold 15 that first year," she says with a laugh.

Undaunted, Mohn kept going because she was gradually increasing sales by doing some advertising directly to dairy farmers and Eau Claire-based Fleet Farm was carrying her product.

The Mohn's mobile home was the office and manufacturing plant, and her children often answered the phone. In 1996 the family built a house on their 350-acre farm and the basement became the Udder Tech office. In 2005, a separate office and warehouse was built.

Two people cut the fabric with most of the sewing done locally on contract.

Mohn's dad, Pete Wallin, is in charge of packaging and delivers the fabric to the sewers.

Daughters Angela and Dana, longtime 4-H members who did a lot of sewing projects, often find themselves sewing Udder Tech products. Angela is finishing work for her nursing degree at the University of Minnesota-Mankato and Dana is attending the UW-Madison seeking a degree in Ag Business.

Son Brent is a diesel mechanic at a packaging company and suggests new ideas for packaging to his mother. He also helps with the crops and machinery on the farm.

Today, Udder Tech remains devoted to helping dairy farmers stay clean and dry while milking cows. It has expanded to 35 products as the Mohn family thinks of new ideas and takes suggestions from customers while continuing to milk cows.

Their very colorful, 28-page catalog and website tell the family story and show the products. Yes, the original Towel Tote is there in three sizes raging from $17.99 to $21.99. Then there are the waterproof jackets, pants, bibs, pullovers, hoods, aprons, scrubs, milking sleeves, artificial insemination vests, straw holders, medicine totes, nitrile gloves and even children's overalls and aprons.

It's all to be seen at www.uddertechinc.com, or you can call (888) 438-8683 for information.

Most everyone has an idea or an invention that would make a good addition to their work or family. They may even think about the idea rather seriously but never actually get around to doing it.

Cheryl Mohn had the idea and did something about it; she sat down at her sewing machine and made a Towel Tote. Then she bought a booth at the 1994 World Dairy Expo, didn't do very well the first year, but has been back every year since. She sees the event as her door to U.S. and international sales.

Not bad for a former home economics teacher, lifelong cow milker and mother of three who had a dream and is living it. And she still milks cows every morning!

On manure and novelties

World Dairy Expo exhibitors run the gamut from big, long-established companies to first-time exhibitors with an idea yet to be proven.

No segment of the dairy industry is more open to new ideas and development than manure handling. Exhibitors at World Dairy Expo ranged from the long-established GHD, Inc. of Chilton, whose owner Steve Dvorak who has installed manure digesters across the country, to Bill Campion and his Pro-Act Microbial of Warren, Rhode Island which treats manure lagoons with microbes, to a host of new companies with new products.

An exhibit set up in the outdoor trade mall drew second looks from many Expo visitors. Pure and simple, hardly anyone knew what it was. The sixty-foot long, eight-foot high, long black plastic tube was something you don't see every day.

It was an "Ecodrum bedding recovery system" being marketed by Tri-Form Poly, of Morris, Manitoba. The big tube is a dairy manure composter that removes water from separated manure solids through high temperatures and air flow resulting in a dry, pathogen-free product, according to the company.

Will dairy farmers be interested? That's what the company wanted to find out at World Dairy Expo.

One exhibitor at World Dairy Expo that knows their products will sell is the Expo's own "Purple Cow," which sells a wide range of cow-themed clothing and novelties and is run by volunteers.

By Friday afternoon, with a day-and-a-half to go, most of the shelves were bare. Volunteers guessed that there were either more international visitors or that those who came had lots of money. (Foreign visitors are the biggest buyers--they all want something from the event to take home to family and children.)

What about the commercial exhibitors, were they successful? That's what they are trying to figure out right now --they'll know in a week or so when they contact the folks who visited their exhibits.

John Oncken is owner of Oncken Communications, a Madison-based agricultural information and consulting company. He can be reached at (608) 222-0624 or via e-mail jfodairy@chorus.net

John F. Oncken
Correspondent for The Capital Times  —  10/10/2008 7:23 am