The person responsible for the choices made here.

Benjamin Church is the founder and steward of Closer To Cow Dairy in northern Michigan. He grew up on a small farm, where his earliest understanding of animals, work, and care took shape. After college, his path led into the highest levels of global pharmaceutical and food systems, giving him firsthand experience with how large, multinational operations shape production, standards, and decision-making across cultures and markets.

That breadth of experience offered a rare vantage point: the ability to see both the efficiencies of scale and the costs they impose—on animals, food quality, and human connection. While his professional life unfolded inside complex systems, his personal passion never left the dairy cow.

Today, those early roots and global perspectives come together at Closer To Cow. 

Benjamin brings what he has learned—about systems, limits, and responsibility—into a deliberately small, transparent, and relational model of dairying. The work here is not a return to the past, but a considered way forward: closer to the cow, closer to the consumer, and grounded in deep respect for the land and place that make it possible.