A story that began in 1927

A little dairy in the City of Downey

Cultivated from the ground up at the hardworking hands of immigrant entrepreneurs, Rockview Family Farms is a piece of California’s agricultural history and a living picture of the American Dream.

It all started 89 years ago, when an Irish immigrant named Bob Hops opened a small dairy in what was then called “Downey City”—a little town situated in the sprawling California farmlands of the early nineteenth century. Five years later, the industrious McCandless brothers bought the company, growing it to include six drive-in dairy stores, 70 home delivery routes, and a wholesale division with eight routes.

A legacy of excellence still alive today

When the small company began to struggle in the early 1960s, another immigrant entrepreneur—this time from Holland—was watching the trouble unfold while running his own farm to supply milk to Rockview. In 1965, believing old-country hard work could rescue the young operation, this farmer and our grandfather, Pete DeGroot, bought the company and set to work fixing things.

More than 50 years later, the only things that have changed are the number of farms we own, facilities we operate, and products we offer.

Rockview is still run by the DeGroot family, and is one of Southern California’s few remaining family-owned and -operated fluid milk operations. We still own our farms and cows, and we’re still committed to that same old-world hard work and customer service.