Westland Milk extends milk supply, payout deal
Dairy farmers supplying Chinese-owned Westland Milk Products in Hokitika had another reason to celebrate this holiday season.
Westgold Salted Butter, produced at Hokitika on the West Coast, is the best in the country.
The product took out the title for champion overall butter at the prestigious New Zealand Champions of Cheese awards held in Hamilton earlier this week.
Both salted and unsalted Westgold variants won Gold Medals, but it was Westgold Salted that reigned supreme over all other butter entries. Judges commented on the butter’s creamy, smooth texture, well balanced flavor and aroma.
Both butters also achieved gold in previous years’ competitions, since being launched onto the New Zealand retail market in 2016. It is the second time that a Westgold butter has received the supreme champion award.
Westgold butter has been sold throughout the world by Westland Milk Products for more than 15 years. However, until 2016, it was only sold in New Zealand as a bulk product for use as an ingredient by bakeries and other large scale food producers.
Kiwi consumers quickly took the rich, creamy “every day gourmet” butter to heart, with sales rising rapidly. Westgold now outsells all other premium-range butters in New Zealand supermarkets, with unit sales totaling all of their volume combined.
“The best butter starts with the best cream, and our farmers have a higher percentage of Jersey breeding in their herds, known for producing high quality cream,” says Westland Chief Executive Toni Brendish.
“This quality is further enhanced by the fact that most of our West Coast dairy farmers have almost entirely pasture-based systems. That natural grass diet gives our cream its flavour and rich yellow colour.”
Westgold also benefits from a long tradition of making butter on the West Coast, dating back to 1893. The process at Westland’s Hokitika factory has been refined over generations to become both an art and a science. Using time-honoured processes, based on traditional batch churning, Westgold’s butter-makers use only fresh cream (and a little salt for the salted product) to create butters that have now twice been recognised as New Zealand’s best.
Federated Farmers claims that the Otago Regional Council is charging ahead unnecessarily with piling more regulation on rural communities.
Dairy sheep and goat farmers are being told to reduce milk supply as processors face a slump in global demand for their products.
OPINION: We have good friends from way back who had lived in one of our major cities for many years.
Listed Canterbury milk processor Synlait’s shares have been placed in a trading halt.
OPINION: Even before the National-led coalition came into power, India was very much at the fore of its trade agenda.
A step-by-step guide helping farmers through the process of creating a Freshwater Farm Plan (FWFP) has been launched by FarmIQ.
OPINION: European farmers are going to extreme lengths to have their message heard.
OPINION: The hustle and bustle of one of Bangkok's most popular fast food outlets may feel a world away from…