BUSINESS FARM-FRESH MILK
Getting close to the customer Words by: Anne Hardie
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or about $250,000, dairy farmers can set up a pasteurised milk business to run alongside their existing farm operation and add another income stream. Richard Houston is in the business of setting farmers up to sell pasteurised milk, usually as a sideline to their supply milk operation and all processed within the confines of a 20ft container. His parents began selling milk to the public a decade ago and today he sells Italian dispensers that can be set up on the farm or in town to sell raw or pasteurised milk. In the past his family ran Village Milk in Golden Bay where they sold raw milk at the farm gate to the public without a problem for 10 years. Despite a devout group of customers who drove out to the farm to collect milk, government rules wouldn’t allow them to have a dispenser in town to grow the business sufficiently and they closed shop earlier this year. It’s why today he says farmers wanting to sell raw milk need to be close to a sizable population where they are handy to customers who don’t need to drive far out to the farm. Whereas pasteurised milk can be transported to dispensers in the community and that makes it easily accessible to grow the business. MPI has 25 registered farm dairy operators on its website for processing Regulated Control Scheme (RCS) raw milk for the purpose of sale. It is an industry that has struggled to make much headway since the Government introduced the scheme in 2015 and Richard says it appears to be designed to be as restrictive as possible to constrain growth. It is still achievable to produce raw milk for sale with those rules – which is why there are 25 operators around the country doing it – but he says it comes down to attention to detail and that isn’t for everyone. It’s all about hygiene above and beyond the usual farm dairy practices. Raw milk is the ultimate way to sell milk, he says, because it is an incredible product with good bacteria, amino acids and simply a good food. For those not game
Left: Dispensers enable customers to fill their own bottles.
