Farm Team

Jamie Mauthe, left, co-owner of Mauthe's Progress Milk Barn, shows off the family farm to a team of MBAs from the Freeman School.

The Mauthe family have been dairy farmers in South Louisiana for five generations, but in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, their small, family-owned dairy was forced to suspend operations.

Now, with the help of celebrity chef John Besh and a team of Freeman School MBAs, the Mauthes hope to bring their fresh glass-bottled milk, Creole cream cheese and homemade cheesecakes to a new generation of customers.

In September, Mauthe’s Progress Milk Barn became the first recipient of funds from the John Besh Foundation’s microloan program, which provides low-interest loans to help local farmers increase production and bring products to market. The Mauthes, who resumed dairy operations in 2010, plan to use the $20,000 loan to purchase cows and upgrade equipment at the dairy, located just across the Louisiana state line in tiny Progress, Miss.

The Mauthes sell their fresh, grass-fed milk in returnable glass bottles.

“Before Katrina, we were processing off of about 45 cows and currently we’re processing off of 14, so we’re hoping to get back to somewhere around that neighborhood,” says Katie Mauthe Cutrer, who runs the dairy along with her parents, Kenny and Jamie Mauthe, her brothers, Daniel and Travis Mauthe, and her sister, Sarah Mauthe Tullos.

In addition to the loan, the Mauthes received another valuable commodity through the program: consulting services from Freeman School MBAs.

The Besh Foundation has partnered with the Freeman School to provide loan recipients with support from MBA students in the areas of marketing, finance and strategy. A team from the Freeman School’s chapter of NetImpact, a national organization dedicated to the use of business skills to improve society, is working with the family.

“The Mauthes are amazing,” says Simone Reggie (MBA ’12), who helped organize the microloan program during her internship with the Besh Foundation. “Basically, they’re just trying to get their name out there and step up from just being at the farmers markets and a few grocery stores.”

Reggie says her team, which also includes MBAs William Cazun, Larry Hall and Sara Steele, hopes to provide the Mauthes with some marketing assistance as well as financial analysis to help them identify potential opportunities.

“We’d like to help them figure out how to market some of their products a little better,” says Reggie. “They’re sitting on a gold mine.”

The Mauthes currently sell their milk, cheeses and cheesecakes at farmers markets, a few grocery stores and to several restaurants (including Besh’s Restaurant August, Lüke and La Provence), but even if they widen their distribution, Cutrer says the company’s mission will remain the same.

“We want it to stay fresh and stay local,” Cutrer says. “What I bottle today came from the cow this morning and will be in our customer’s home tomorrow.”

Photos by Paul Morse/PaulMorsePhotographs.com