Dairy Farmers find a different way to value add.
South Gippsland Dairy's Shelley Walker, Neil Walker and Campbell Evans interview.
"We wanted to do something different, not what everyone else is doing," Shelley Walker said.
Three years ago, Ms Walker and husband Neil, who milk 180-200 cows near Korumburra in the heart of South Gippsland, were looking for a way out of the dairy crisis.
Value-adding made sense but, with the market awash with boutique milk brands, the couple decided to take another course.
The answer presented itself when a mutual friend introduced them to Dairy Process Engineer Campbell Evans, who raised the idea of marketing colostrum.
The big Australian processors, once supplied the market but Mr Evans said he knew of only one other small Australian business selling colostrum these days.
With its small volumes, high-value niche and longer shelf life, colostrum made sense.
"You have to recognise at the very start that we're a small family-owned business," Mr Evans said. How do you start in the dairy industry today without being a worldwide company and actually do something? The product has to fit the capabilities and the resources you have."
Their business, South Gippsland Dairy (SGD), is now on the verge of launching its product and has just recruited its first suppliers.
While the idea was to select a business that was bite-sized enough for the trio to handle, the road has been far from easy.
"It was more challenging than I'd imagined, primarily because there is no other producer for these authorities to refer to," Mr Evans said.
They were all starting from scratch.
"We were having to go to Canberra to get classification for what colostrum actually is, it doesn't exist in some of the codes. We've come to some big hurdles. We could have been far more successful in financial terms just importing the stuff and repacking. That was an option for us some two years ago but we said that's not true to our cause and what's the point of doing that?"
Mr Evans said while many brands of powder contain as little as 5 per cent colostrum, SGD's was pure and proven to be more potent than others.
"We will never be the biggest producer but we would like to be the best producer in the world," he said. We've had CSIRO test the product and our results are good. They take antigens that those antibodies will attack, or attach to and measure how effective the colostrum is. We've been testing our product for two years. Now, we're confident we have consistently superior product."
Aside from purity, the key to producing high quality colostrum is fastidious handling from farm all the way through the factory.
SGD farm services manager Neil Walker said the colostrum had to be from the first milking.
Farmer-suppliers are paid, depending on the quality of the colostrum and must sign on to a colostrum management program to ensure adequate colostrum is retained for calves.
SGD believes its small-scale collection and processing system, gives it a big advantage over large dairy processors.
"If you're a large cooperative that has a big processing facility then, by the time you get this small amount of stuff and fill your pipeline, nothing's coming out the other end because it's been flushed out by the time you get through the process," Mr Evans said.
"Large companies that take it by the tanker-load have diluted it all down with milk. They had to get such volumes of colostrum, they would collect it from all over the state for one processing plant. By the time is gets collected, consolidated, all sudden by the time it gets processed, it's days and days of deterioration."
Mr Evans said large processors also tended to put the colostrum through spray dryers operating at 160 degrees, while SGD's colostrum is freeze dried at -50 degrees.
The trio plan to expand SGD's product offering, with capsules and even skin creams on the agenda. Convinced of its immune-boosting, gut-healing properties, they hope its results will build a loyal customer base.
"We want customers to keep coming back and buying not one but 12 lots a year," Ms Walker said. "If people are getting results for their own health, they'll come back to it."
