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Chapter 4 - The Next Generation and Beyond
When M.L. Shaw, Sr. passed away in 1933 at the age of 77, his two
sons, Mark L. and Albert renamed the farm ML Shaw Sons to honor
their father. The sons continued to operate the farm as a
home-delivery dairy.
In the 1930’s, home delivery of milk became a very competitive
business.
HP Hood Company began to have their route salesmen follow greater
Lowell
independent dairies with the intent of capturing their accounts. The
Hood representative would offer customers free milk for one month
making it difficult for the independent to hold onto his
accounts. The Shaw Farm routes were spared this treatment as a result
of a
friendship the Hood representative had with Albert Shaw, who had
taken
over responsibility for the route sales as well as processing.
In the late 30’s with the Depression in the past, the farm began to
return to profitability. The horse era ended with the purchase of
gasoline-powered tractors.
The Farmall F-12 and Farmall H were the
popular tractors of the era and
several were purchased by the Shaws. In1938, there was a big
hurricane that hit New England. Read about it here:
LINK The farm lost some 200 trees to the
storm. The trees were brought to a local sawmill, and turned into
lumber, and in turn used to build many of the current buildings,
still in use.
The farm continued to grow into the 40’s as Winthrop and Warren Shaw
began to play important roles. Winthrop, and his wife Virginia
purchased a farm located on Hildreth Street. This parcel of
land was owned by Delmont Coburn and produced corn for silage..
In 1949, Winthrop Shaw left the farm, relocating to California
as a result of a severe case of asthma. M.L. Shaw, Sr., his brother
Albert, and son Warren along with several other key people continued
to work the farm.
In 1944 the farm was awarded the Agricultural Pennant for war time
production of milk by the Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of
Agriculture. In 1947 Warren married Nancy Kinports and later built a
home at 251 New
Boston Rd, and would have four children, Ruth, Linda, Warren, Jr.,
and Susan.
In 1949, Walter Biedron of Old Rd took a part time job "jumping" on
the
milk routes, working with Albert Shaw. He never left. Over the
years, he would make the gradual transition from route jumper to
milk processing manager and claims to have handled over a million
bottles during that time. Biedron oversaw the change of a manual
bottling operation, where he started each day loading a wood fired
boiler, to a modern steam powered pasteurization plant.
For many years, he started each day leaving the farm with a delivery
truck, and finished by processing and bottling the day’s milk
production.
This man worked as hard, and was as dedicated as any family member.
For his hard work, Mark L Shaw gave him a lot of land on the farm to
build his home. He and his wife Barbara had four children, one of
them,
Walter Biedron, Jr., who would also make a career of the farm. He
continued to work full time until 1994, and to this day acts as a
consultant to current plant manager Jim Sheridan. In total, he gave
over 55 years to the farm.
It was in the late 50’s that Mark L Shaw, Jr. retired from the
family
business, leaving ownership to Albert Shaw and Warren L Shaw.
The challenge of the 1960’s would become supermarkets.
Home delivery of milk, long the backbone of the business, began to
decline as consumers were attracted to the one-stop convenience of
these new
markets. Through the early 60’s the farm experienced difficult
financial
times as home delivery sales declined and margins decreased due to
the
competitive pricing of the large markets.
During this period, throughout New England, small farms with on-farm
bottling succumbed to the financial pressure, and sold their farms
for
development. Committed to the future of the farm, Warren Shaw began
to realize that a
new vision was necessary for the farm to continue. He had spent his
entire working life on the agricultural side of the business but
knew
that with Albert getting close to retirement, he would have to take
leadership for a new marketing strategy He found his strategy in
on-farm sales.
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Home
Delivery
 Please
visit our new on-line ordering
system.
It's chock full of information and
details regarding our Home
Delivery service. Shaw Farm's trucks
deliver fresh milk,
bread, and other produce.
Click here
for info and ordering |
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Growth Hormones?
We have
strong feelings about not using
artificial growth hormones.
Click here
for more details |
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Shaw Farm Newsletter
Watch here for our 100th Anniversary
Celebration newsletters |
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The Boston Globe recently reported on our anniversary. Click here
for details |
