PAVILION, N.Y. -- We all know where milk comes from, but there's often much more going on behind the scenes at Noblehurst Farms.
Chris Noble, vice president of Noblehurst Farms, explained how unsold food from supermarkets are combined with cow manure to create natural gas like methane and carbon dioxide.
"If you think about it as a big stomach, anything that you want to eat, the digester wants to eat too, so things like oranges, sugars, things like that, the digester loves." Noble said.
And while it might seem unappetizing, the natural gas the digester gives off, feeds into a generator, one of only 25 throughout New York State.
"We feel digester power is more important to the grid, because people are consuming all the time, not just when the wind blows, or the sun shines."
Making for a continuous and sustainable dairy operation. It also keeps an estimated 500 tons of food waste out of landfills
"And we like to say that nothing is wasted on a dairy farm, from the manure that is used for fertilizer to the water that is recycled, and other products as well," said Beth Meyer of the American Dairy Association. "The technology that Chris Noble and the team at this farm have put together is really extraordinary, and it's a great model for other farms to follow, not only across the state, but across the country."