A vintage black and white portrait of a couple, dressed in formal attire with floral accessories, exuding a sense of nostalgia.

The Shatto Story

It all started in the late 1800s – three generations ago, to be exact – when Minnie Porter married George Winstead. The married couple bought and began farming the land that is now home to Shatto Milk Company.

A vintage portrait of four people, dressed in formal 19th-century clothing, poses together in a sepia-toned setting.

After a few years on the farm, Minnie and George had five children: Frank, William, Jack, Anna Lucille and Mary Alice. Twenty years later the family grew by one more, when little Georgia Francis came as a happy surprise.

While some children grew up and left the family farm, Mary Alice and Jack remained. Georgia, the youngest, married a man named Ivan Cox. In time, their union brought them back to the family farm where Ivan struck a partnership with Georgia’s older sister, Mary Alice. The two began a dairy, working closely together for many years until Mary Alice retired, leaving the management of the farm to Ivan.

A black and white photograph shows a young cow with black spots in a farmyard with a house, tractor, and fence in the background.

Sepia-toned photograph of a woman standing by an antique automobile with a passenger inside.

A man sits in a horse-drawn wagon with two horses hitched in front of a small house.

Two children stand in a grassy yard with a bare tree and fence in the background.

A black-and-white photo of a family of five seated on a floral-patterned couch, with a curtain in the background.

In the late 1940s, Georgia and Ivan began their family, having three children of their own: Esther, Dinah and Barbara. Eventually, Barbara would marry a man with a last name you might recognize – Leroy Shatto. When Ivan retired in the mid-1980s, it was to Leroy and Barbara he left the family farm.

Several cows, some black and white and one black, stand in a grassy field with a utility pole and trees in the background.

In the early 1990s, other local dairy farms were going out of business due to the low milk prices being paid by dairy cooperatives for bulk milk. By the mid-1990s, the farm George and Minnie began could no longer sustain itself, and the Shattos began to talk about its future.

In 2001, Leroy and Barbara Shatto began investigating the idea of bottling the milk from their small herd of cows that remained. They wanted to provide the people of Kansas City and St. Joseph with the freshest, best-tasting milk on the market. Milk straight from their local family farm, that is.

Man stocking refrigerated shelves with milk and creamers in a grocery store aisle.

On June 4, 2003, Shatto Milk Company made its first farm-fresh delivery to just under 10 retail stores in the Kansas City metro area. Leroy and Barbara’s dream came true – the family farm was saved.

A woman sits on a bench, smiling while holding a bottle of milk in her hands.

Man in striped shirt stands at counter with milk bottles on shelves and a pink cow toy in the background.

Since the day George and Minnie Winstead purchased this farm all those years ago, it has truly been a family farm. Today, our family’s dedication to the farm and you, our neighbors, is stronger than ever.