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Miel Meyer (left) with parents and Meyer Cheese founders Ben and Sophia.
Boutique Waikato cheese producer Meyer Cheese is investing in a new $3.5 million facility, designed to boost capacity and enhance the company's sustainability credentials.
Milk processing, cheese making, packaging, storage and delivery will come under one roof, enabling the company to make a bigger range of products and seamlessly go from milk arriving for production to it being aged and ready for consumers. Meyer Cheese general manager Miel Meyer says the new building will have the capacity of holding 160 tonnes of products.
Meyer Cheese was started on a family farm in Temple View in 1976 by Miel's parents Ben and Sophia (Fieke). Now retired, the couple still live on the farm and are used as an important sounding board by Miel.
Miel says the family was shocked when they first heard the price tag of the new building, but they decided to go ahead with the investment to future-proof the business for the next generation.
Sustainability is a feature of the new building, the entire roof can be filled with solar panels and the company is looking at collecting gas from the effluent system to harvest energy.
One thing that's not moving is Miel's office. "I will still have the view over the farm. It looks lovely, but the reason for that is actually to manage the animals, the cows, and the grass. If I can see problems, I can deal with them," he told Dairy News.
The Meyer family farm employs sharemilkers Josh and Ashley who, along with their kids, milk 395 cows, down from a peak of 550 cows to make the farm self-sufficient in feed.
Miel says cow numbers were reduced despite the high milk price.
"We do this so that we only feed the animals from the platform and so we don't need to import food, and the only way we can achieve that is reducing the cow numbers."
Milk is piped underground from the milkshed to the factory, meaning fresh milk travels less than a kilometre before being turned into cheese. The company buys sheep and goat milk from other farms. Extra conventional milk is purchased from Fonterra and selected nearby farms. Meyer Cheese makes cheese from cow, sheep and goat milk.
Sustainability Award
At the recent NZ Champions of Cheese Awards, Meyer Cheese picked up the Woolworths Sustainability Champion award, which recognised a cheese producer embedding environmental stewardship into business practice.
The judges' note to Meyer Cheese said: "The judging panel was impressed by your holistic, Pasture to Plate approach, which demonstrates a commitment to sustainability at every stage of production. Your longstanding legacy of environmental consciousness, dating back to the company's founding, is a testament to your genuine dedication".
Miel Meyer says winning the award was an honour and a nod to the work done by his parents, who have always been planting trees and fencing waterways on the property. The company also funds planting by Friends of Barrett’s Bush on soil not suitable for grazing in the area.
“Fencing streams and planting native trees, I mean we never did it to necessarily be sustainable, my parents were doing this since I was a child. And now it’s cool to be sustainable,” says Miel.
His parents’ European (Dutch) heritage also plays a part.
“It’s a natural thing my parents are passionate about. Europe is probably 10 or 15 years ahead in terms of pushing the regulations around sustainability and the environment,” says Miel.
“Mum and dad have always realised that we generate our income and our product from the land. The least you can do is take care it.
“That’s quite an important feature of what they want to achieve. So, winning the award is awesome, but it comes at a cost too.
“This year we reduced the cow numbers and there are two things that have happened – less stress on the land and less money in our pocket.
“So, at the cost of profit, we have made decisions for the better of sustainability.
“It’s difficult to make decisions because sometimes sustainability does have a cost but there’s also a cost of not doing it.
“I’m glad that my parents have set a policy in place where every decision in the company and the environment must be flagged. So, if you’re deciding, hey, we’re going to make a new style of cheese or we’re going to employ someone, whatever it is, you have to consider the environment.”
Five Gongs
Meyer Cheese picked up five awards.
They won:
Miel Meyer says Whyte is a wonderful worker and deserves the credit.
"We are so happy for him whether he stays with us or sees a future in a big dairy company he'll contribute positively."
Whyte is the third generation from the family to work for Meyer Cheese; his grandmother and mother have both worked a the cheese company.
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