Floating Farm

Floating Farm is a dairy farm on a floating platform in the Merwehaven in Rotterdam, which makes milk, yoghurt, butter and cheese from its own cows and sells them in the shop on board.

The cows have free access to a meadow during the day for about eight months of the year and choose whether to be in or out, and for their first two years all the young stock graze day and night for about eight months on Natuurmonumenten grassland in the Midden-Delfland polder. Raw milk is sold in the shop. The bottled milk is pasteurised and homogenised with nothing added to extend its shelf life, and the dairy also makes buttermilk, yoghurt, hangop (strained yoghurt) and butter. The cheese ripens on wooden boards below the waterline for at least two and up to seven months; whether it is made from raw milk, their website doesn't say. Herbs and microgreens from their vertical farm are also sold, not yet confirmed.

The shop at Gustoweg 10 is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 to 17:00, when visitors can also walk around the platform or book a tour of about an hour, and the dairy is sold at several other outlets in Rotterdam.

As much of the cows' feed as possible comes from waste streams in the city: spent grain from Rotterdam breweries, bread from Rotterdam bakers and grass from Feyenoord.