When the gate is opened and cows return to green pasture after winter, they hold their tails high and scamper with glee.

That’s how Natalie Paino feels about her venture Hightail Dairy — so much so that she claimed the name.

“I wanted to incorporate that wholesomeness and joy into the brand,” says Paino, a Bremer County Farm Bureau member.

Hightail Dairy, winner of the 2026 Iowa Farm Bureau Grow Your Future Award for young ag entrepreneurs, offers fresh dairy products delivered from her farm in Plainfield.

There are nearly a dozen flavors of ice cream like monster cookie, strawberry pretzel, strawberry cheesecake and pecan pie. Flavors start with an ice cream mix that contains 14% butterfat for creaminess and uses local ingredients like berries.

There is a concoction made from Girl Scout cookies, and one called church potluck that includes ingredients like puppy chow and scotcheroos. It’s all made in small batches, one gallon at a time.

Hightail also started making cheese curds last year, and demand has grown.

Bottled milk is coming later this year, hopefully with a low-sugar chocolate milk to come.

“That was really the nostalgia that started it all,” tells Paino. 


Living the dream

Raised on her parent’s dairy farm, Paino’s adventure began with a high school marketing class, where she was tasked with creating a business plan. She attended Iowa State University, all the while holding on to her dream — to live on the family farm and create a self-supporting income.

After college, she and her husband, Marquise, who grew up on Chicago’s south side, settled on the family farm near Plainfield in Bremer County, and she started making ice cream.

“I knew two things,” says Paino, “that dairy farming was hard work and that milk prices hadn’t really changed in 40 years.” 

To follow her dream, she tapped into programs like Choose Iowa, a grant program from the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. She also completed on-farm dairy processing training and cheese-making workshops in Wisconsin.

Originally an event-based business, Paino saw that market disappear during the COVID pandemic. She quickly made the pivot to delivery.

“At the same time people were confined to home, they had more money to spend,” says Paino.

Bremer County Farm Bureau member Natalie Paino start her dairy farm after graduating from Iowa State University. Her business, Hightail Dairy in Plainfield, delivers fresh milk and ice cream to customers in northeast Iowa. She farms with help from her husband, Marquise, and daughter, Stella. Submitted photos


Happy cows

High-quality dairy products start with high-quality milk. Paino’s parents, Terry and Kelly Eick, have bred their herd of 50 Holsteins to be A2 certified. A2/A2 is a protein in milk that makes it easier to digest. Along with the dairy herd, the family's White Gold Dairy raises beef, also sold direct to consumers, and 800 acres of row crops.

Animal health and comfort take center stage and are tied to the farm’s sustainability. 

Cows are bedded in oat or soybean straw, byproducts of the farm’s crop production. Pens are kept clean, with manure used as fertilizer on crop fields according to the farm’s manure management plan.

The cows are fed high-quality alfalfa and corn grown on the farm. 

Animals are treated for sickness when necessary.

And the dairy strictly adheres to antibiotic withdrawal restrictions. They keep detailed notes on the timing, dosage and effects of any medical treatments. They discard any milk that has traces of antibiotics or other substances.

In the creamery, good hygiene rules the day. Cooling and transfer equipment is diligently sterilized. Milk is pasteurized.

All this happens while the cows “relax and eat,” Paino says.

The result is an array of dairy foods that will make your mouth water and hot summer days melt away.

Paino credits her success to customer trust. Customers are willing to buy her product because they know it is top quality and she will put money back into the community.

Paino regularly invests in community projects and still offers free samples to the assisted living facility where she used their test kitchen in her early days.

“When I started this, I just wanted my kids to have the same chance I had to grow up on the farm,” says Paino. Now a farm store is in the planning stages, and Paino says she “would not live anywhere else.”

Queck-Matzie is a freelance writer from Fontanelle.