![]() The calves go under fences and then the mothers try and follow them. It’s really hard to walk a herd of cows with newborn babies by their side for 2km down the lane and back again. This is because cows have to walk about 2km to the cowshed & back again – two times a day. Not on a conventional dairy farm, anyway. They said leaving calves with their mothers wouldn’t work. I did that pitch for five years with no takers. I thought they could do it with a small number of the herd and that would increase over time. I offered to pay a 45% premium if they would change a few farming practices and leave the calves with their mothers. So I approached Canterbury farmers with a proposition. I wanted to change the dairy industry and I wasn’t going to do it by buying milk from Fonterra. When you are choosing a bottle of milk from the supermarket, it’s almost all Fonterra milk – even the fancy, expensive ones. Most milk brands go to Fonterra, which is required by law to sell any competitor raw milk at the same price that Fonterra pay their farmers. My reusable packaging hit the markets and cafes and the customers loved it. I became an expert in the Dairy Processing Code of Practice. I taught myself basic process engineering and microbiology. After a heavy barrage of ‘no’s, I was pleasantly surprised when he said, “OK, cool.” When the MPI inspector came, I told him we would be putting our milk in reusable bottles and milk cans. I used two shipping containers and all of my savings. But I know that most of the plastic milk bottles in New Zealand are not actually recycled. The farmer, the processor, the retailer – none of them are set up for sustainability.Īt this point you might just decide that there’s no way around this and put your milk in plastic bottles. New Zealand is now very well set up for dairy, but New Zealand dairy is not set up for sustainability. So you’d ask, what about reusable milk cans or kegs to supply cafes? Again. So definitely not reusable glass bottles? No. In New Zealand, we can put beer, pasta sauce and even baby food into glass bottles, but not milk? No. You’d ask, “Can you do glass bottles?” And they’d say, “No.” You would approach one of the two contract milk processors in New Zealand. Let’s say you wanted to set up a new milk brand. In a country awash with milk – with so much invested – you’d think a few small changes would be easy.
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