From Cow to Cone, Hightail Dairy Delivers Fresh Ice Cream

“Let’s hightail it out of here!”

It’s a phrase we often use without giving much thought to its origin. From the time Natalie Eick Paino (pronounced “Ike Pain-o”) started toddling around her family’s Northeast Iowa dairy farm, she has moved full speed ahead.

Natalie is pictured her with her favorite cow, Life. Life was a 4-H project with an interesting birthing story.
Also pictured is Natalie’s husband, Marquise Paino, and her parents, Terry and Kelly Eick.

Natalie earned 30 college credits as a high school student, so she graduated from Iowa State University in 2.5 years. She took classes in Agricultural Entrepreneurship while earning a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Business. In 2019, she was one of six members selected to participate in the Rural Entrepreneurship Academy where she job shadowed at both Hansen’s Farm Fresh Dairy in Hudson and Country View Dairy in Hawkeye. She learned about ice cream, yogurt, milk and cheese production in rural creameries.

“My favorite part of this process was getting to assist with the cheese-curd making and trying the finished product,” says Natalie, who lives in Plainfield, Iowa, with her husband, Marquise Paino. He works at Poet Bioprocessing in Shell Rock.

Although Natalie says she has always wanted to be involved with her family’s 55-Holstein dairy cow operation, she needed to find a way to generate additional revenue. Locally produced, value-added agriculture is where her interests lie.

Natalie started making and selling ice cream while she was still in college. Then she revised her business plan during the Covid-19 pandemic to become Hightail Delivery, under which the family direct sells dairy beef. She taught herself how to build a website through Wix and began taking online orders. Then she partnered with Yellow Table Farms and Hansen’s Dairy to expand her offerings to fresh milk, cheese curds, fresh produce and eggs.

In addition to offering weekly home delivery throughout Bremer and Chickasaw Counties, Natalie sells her Hightail ice cream wholesale to Parks & Rec throughout the region. Her sweet treats are served at many swimming pools and baseball field concession stands. She also attends special events and sets up “pop-up stores” at community celebrations and care centers. She sells pre-packaged, six-ounce cups, pints and half-gallons of unique ice cream flavors like Strawberry Cheesecake and Monster Cookie.

“Ultimately, I want to be able to use the milk from our dairy cows to make ice cream, cheese curds and other products,” Natalie says. She got one step closer to reaching her dream in June 2023 when an order she placed for a prefabricated milk manufacturing facility (shipping container) arrived. Natalie was able to purchase this facility with the help of a $50,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Natalize is standing by the pasteurizer. On the wall is a chart recorder she uses to prove the milk was heated to the correct temperature to kill off harmful bacteria.

Now Natalie is wading through a myriad of state and federal rules and regulations to make on-farm manufacturing a reality. Until then, Natalie and her mom, Kelly, use the commercial kitchen at a nearby nursing home to prepare their homemade ice cream. Kelly makes all of the ice cream toppings herself.

As a fifth-generation dairy farmer, Natalie understands nothing worth attaining comes easily. After all, if it was easy, more people would do it! The family’s goal is to produce their first batches of ice cream in the new facility by the end of calendar year 2023.

Just like the cows high tail it out of the barn and into the pasture after being cooped up all winter, ice cream lovers hightail it to the farm or wherever homemade ice cream is sold. Today Natalie is sharing one of her family’s favorite recipes, which she says tastes better when enjoyed with a scoop (or two!) of vanilla ice cream.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup Dutch process cocoa or unsweetened cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, divided

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Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together: flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and sea salt. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, add: eggs, melted butter, oil, vanilla extract, and brown sugar. Stir until smooth. (It’s fine if you have a few small brown sugar clumps.)
4. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients; don’t overmix. Stir in shredded zucchini until just combined. Stir in ¾ cup of the chocolate chips.
5. Pour batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle the remaining ¼ cup of chocolate chips over the top of the bread. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out mostly clean. (You might have some melted chocolate chips on the toothpick and that is fine. You just don’t want a lot of gooey batter.)
6. Remove the pan from the oven and set on a wire cooling rack. Let the bread cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the edges of the bread and carefully remove from the pan. Let the bread cool on the wire cooling rack until slightly warm. Cut into slices and serve.

NOTE: The bread will keep on the counter, wrapped in plastic wrap, for up to 4 days. This bread also freezes well. To freeze, cool the bread completely and wrap in plastic wrap and aluminum foil. Freeze for up to 1 month. Defrost before slicing.