Bio milk demand up

Another biological farmer remarked he was producing this top quality milk but it was just being treated like everyone else's and it deserved a better fate.

Someone who heard this remark was Joanie Williams of Hastings who, with husband Richard, formed company Origin Earth and is now selling this milk in liquid form as well as yoghurts and a range of cheeses.

"We decided to do something about it and liquid sales are now increasing exponentially with enquiries coming into the Hastings factory from as far afield as Auckland," says Joanie, a partner and factory manager.

They first approached Davidson, who has a fully biological farm, and was following the programme supplied by Outgro Bio Agricultural. Kevin agreed to supply and after negotiations involving Fonterra, an amount was agreed to. Any farmer can legally supply up to 10% of the farm's production to anyone else.

The first plan was to put the milk into a separate vat for collection but this would have needed another pumping process for Origin Earth's portable tank. A "T" junction was put into the line between the heat exchanger and the main vat delivery line and the milk was gravity fed direct to Origin Earth's tanker.

"This avoided another pumping process further reducing the chance of damage to the milk."

The factory was set up in September 2010 and the first batch trials were started in November with the official opening in December 2010.

Williams collects the milk "45 seconds from the cow" twice a week in her specially-built, insulated tanker which is towed by her 4WD.

"I collect the milk at the same time so, knowing cows as I do, the milk will be coming from the same group each time. It is important to note that I am collecting the milk within parameters set by Fonterra and we were happy to do this."

A round collection trip takes 80 minutes. On arrival at the plant, part of the tanker load of milk is pasteurised whilst the remainder of the tanker's laod is chilled via built in glycol jacket. "The quality of the milk is set inside the farm gate. Our aim is to take high quality milk and with, the minimum of legal treatments, to convert it to high quality liquid milk, cheeses and yoghurts."

At present the milk is sold in one and two litre containers and processed to three sizes of plain yoghurts and five types of cheeses.

The milk is not homogenised so the traditional cream at the top can be seen in the containers and it is not standardised, so the composition changes through the season.

As well as collecting, processing and packaging Joanie is also the sales and promotion manager, which in the beginning was very hard work.

"At the start my husband Richard, who is a cameraman doing programmes for Country Calendar and Rural Delivery, kept the wolf from the door while I went out and did the selling."

Her first call for liquid milk was to the Hastings and Napier farmers markets which she says was "vital to our success". It gave them a chance to talk to potential customers and end users to help drive sales to the retail sector, cafes and restaurants.

In the early days, if Williams had not sold all the milk at the market, she would drop off containers free of charge to cafes and restaurants.

Within a short time they were back to buy after customers commented on the taste of their coffees.

All products that leave the plant have complete traceability on the label, enabling date and time of collection, the cows and the pastures they grazed to be traced.

This combined with Davidson's Outgro program and GPS tracking, the nutrient management of each paddock can also be traced.

"Origin Earth is about sustainable farm practices and full traceability."

Williams' next challenge is to develop the sales of product from a biologically manged sheep milking operation in the district, in conjunction with the present operation.