Langrietvlei Farm, South AfricaThe Land of Milk and Honey

by Reuben Kotze

I will start off with a little bit of the history of our farm.Langrietvlei was established in 1715 by the Dutch. It was oneof two farms responsible for supplying fresh meat and otherfarm products to the passing ships on the West Coast on theirway to Capetown.

The farmhouse, built in 1789, is a well known nationalmonument on the West Coast. This fact helped me with themarketing when I started to process our milk.

Our farm is known as the land of milk and honey. We onlyget 12 inches of rainfall a year and it is classified as a semidesert area. We run a mixed farming operation on 3500hectares (7700 acres). My father is responsible for the 250Hereford cattle we use for beef production and 1500 dorpersheep. My brother does all the sowing, silage making, and har-vesting of wheat, barley, rye, oats and lupins. He is alsoresponsible for 115ha of potatoes. My mother runs a big honeyoperation and processes and delivers her products to bigsupermarkets in Capetown. I am responsible for the dairy,milking 200 Guernsey cows. So you see that within our farm-ing operation every facet must play its part.

About 4 years ago I was milking 200 cows three timesdaily. The cows were doing extremely well. They averaged 30la day and were smashing South African records in all agegroups. The high producing cows are fed in the summermonths and the low producers go out on pastures. In winter allthe cows graze. We were doing very well at shows and every-thing was great.

Then Parmalat took over our local milk company. Thefarmers close to retirement age decided that they would sell.Soon after Parmalat took over our milk price was cut by half.The dairy was immediately put under pressure, because wewere making a loss.

Our family have been milking Guernseys since 1960 andbig decisions had to be made. I decided that I would start todistribute milk in towns. We purchased two 400 ltr bulk milktanks and placed them in two shops in different towns. At thisstage you could sell unpasteurised milk providing the milkpassed the health requirement tests.

Bear in mind that at this stage I am also still selling milk toParmalat. I am sure that nowhere else in the world would yoube allowed to sell milk in town and to a big milk distributor,because they would just stop collecting your milk. Well I hadto if I wanted to keep on milking. When Parmalat took overone of my friends warned me that he had heard Parmalat wasplanning to close down the cheese factory. Keeping this inmind I kept on delivering milk to the shops. By this stage I wasselling 1000 litres a day.

After a year Parmalat dropped the bomb and my suspicionsbecame reality. We were given three months notice that theywould close the route and no more milk would be collected.

All 30 dairy farmers came together to try and buy the cheesefactory so that we could make our own cheese. This idea wasquickly dealt with by Parmalat stripping the whole factory. Sowe had no choice – all of us had to sell out.

I had three months to do something. I knew I was alreadyselling 1000 litres of milk a day so I could at least keep 50cows. At the same stage at one of the shops I supplied milk tothe owner decided to sell out and I bought the shop andchanged it into a milk shop. I called it the A2 shop.

What did I do in the following 3 months?★ I changed from 3X milking to 2X a day after 10 years of

3X milking.★ I stopped the full feed system of high quality feeding and

only fed the cows whatever the farm could produce.★ I took my young stock off the 20 ha pastures and my lower

producing cows became pasture based overnight.★ My milk production went from 6000 ltrs a day to 3000 ltrs★ I sold 50 cows to help buy the equipment I needed to

process milk (pasteuriser, cheese bath, refrigerating fanetc).

★ I went to see the health authorities about all the lawsregarding selling bottled milk and a processing plant.Parmalat found out that I was selling milk in town and of

course my milk production was very low. They stopped col-lecting my milk on 23rd December even though they were sup-posed to carry on until the end of January the next year. Thereason? That I was selling milk in town. This did not reallyworry me because I told myself that I should look on the brightside and they could have done this a year earlier. Of the 30farmers only three were left.

Over Christmas and the New Year that year I made cheesefrom the excess milk. Luckily I had done a cheese course andI could ask Gay van Hasselt to help me. In the beginning Istruggled to cope with 3000 ltrs a day. I was only selling 1500ltrs in town so I dried off all my low producing cows.

Niche Marketing Guernsey Products

Reuben feeding the cows at Langrietvlei Farm

My own shop was growing by the day. I was selling fullcream milk, low fat and skimmed milk, juice, yoghurt anddrinking yoghurt, butter, feta and mozzarella cheese, cram andcultured buttermilk called amazi by our African ethnic groups.I also added our fresh farm honey, potatoes, eggs, vegetablesand fruit. All produced the organic way on our farm.

Have you heard the saying: behind every great diary prod-uct is great packaging? Well this is true but packaging is veryexpensive. I felt if I could in anyway make my milk productscheaper without losing the quality thee poor could also buymilk and I would sell more.

So what I did was to tell the customer to bring their owncontainers and get the milk cheaper. I did a promotion “Buyone litre and get one free”, but you had to bring your own con-tainer. So now you can buy all the products sold in my shop inbulk, in your own container, to save you money.

I do realise that you are not allowed to do this in your coun-tries but I often wonder if it is the health regulation or the bigdairy companies keeping control.

At present three and a half years later I am selling over3500 ltrs of milk per day in my two shops and other outlets. Iam milking almost 200 cows again and will decide if I want toexpand or stay the same size.

Why did I think the shops would be successful and what did I do

to make them successful?★ I knew the Guernsey milk would sell because of the qual-

ity, even with direct competition from another milk shopselling Holstein milk.

★ I used our farm’s name and the fact that we only milk The counter and some of the products at the shop

Ross Hopper tells the story of a world renowned GuernseyFarm that, faced with falling milk prices, diversified with

ingenuity and lots of hard work

Maleny Dairies is a family owned business situated in thepicturesque hills of Maleny, Queensland. We have been farm-ing on this property for 3 generations, since 1948.

With the advent of milk industry deregulation, and theresultant drastic drop in income, (cut by half), we consideredgiving up farming. However, we decided to fight back bybuilding a milk processing plant - not only to help ourselves,but the other local farmers and their families. With the com-bined efforts of parents Harold & Dorothy, brothers Ross andKeith, and sisters Kay and Beth, we embarked on the massivetask of bringing our plans to fruition. The project started out at$ 2,000 home farm development but this increased to $100,000when we decided to move closer to the road to attract tourists.Finally we ended up with a $600,000 investment! ThusMaleny Dairies began operations in December 2002, and theimmediate positive response by customers to our products wasamazing.

Maleny is known for its green hills and fresh water, thearea has an annual rainfall of 75 ins. The plan was to makeMaleny Dairies a truly local enterprise so that local people

who brought their friends up from Brisbane would say “Comeand try some of our milk” We wanted the public to beinvolved.

We have had Guernseys on this farm from the beginning.Dad had been under pressure to change to the volume marketwith Holsteins but had always stuck to his Guernseys. Why didwe stick with the Guernseys? Simply because their milk is thebest. Not only does it taste good, but it is good for you too.The cows look different and the milk looks and tastes differ-ent. We would not be able to charge the premium on our milkwithout the colour and quality of the product. Sadly,the BetaCasein A2 content of the milk could not be used in advertising

The goats on view in the milking parlour

Guernseys to promote the shop.★ The lactose intolerance of our ethnic groups.★ I used the A2 fact of Guernsey milk.★ BST free milk, which very few can claim in SA.★ Traceability – the cows’food is from the farm.★ We allow farm visits so people know about us.★ Marketing – we went to all the local fairs and farmers’

markets to promote my cheese and products. We made useof “specials”. We won best stall award out of 300 smallbusinesses at the West Coast Expo.

★ The financial output was limited★ My shop was in the right spot.

The SecretYou have to be able to make up a true story and colour in

all the facts to your advantage.

Why your own shop?The advantages are that you:-

1. Make your price.2. Sell direct to the public with no middleman.3. Connect with the public.4. Educate the public about all the good in fresh farm

produce.5. Are hands on.

6. Make the money.The disadvantages:-

1. Work with more labour.2. Need to be on the ball regarding health issues.3. It takes time to grow.4. Housewives like to visit one supermarket and buy every-

thing under one roof.

Additional side productsWe sell a lot of 10kg bags of “Guernsey Crap” outside our

shop. We also slaughter our own cows and make sausagesusing the beef from the cows mixed with meat from the wildpigs we catch. This product is sold to many restaurants aroundthe West Coast. The rest of the meat is sold as stewing beef toour neighbouring farms. My latest addition to the shop areGuernsey skins. We used to sell the skins for next to nothingand now I take them to the skin factory and sell them for overR3000.

We opened another shop in a different town about sixmonths ago. Sales are increasing all the time. Bigger super-markets have approached me to sell my dairy products in theirshops. So I am delivering bottled milk to some shops and willhave to build a factory on the farm to cope with the demand.

Looking to the future we will have to comply with BlackEconomic Empowerment.

because of objection bythe A2 Company. Weare happy to see the A2Company prosperbecause it collects milkfrom Holstein, Jerseyand Guernsey herds inour area and givesthose farmers a smallpremium, but we canmake a much betterm a rgin by marketingour own products.

Dad had becomevery well known as thebreeder of EllendeanBelladonna, aGuernsey World Classproduction champion,breaking the records inmilk, butterfat & pro-tein. Belladonna peakperformance was anamazing 70.5 litres ofmilk in one day. Heloved his cows and wasjustly proud of hisachievements. Now he retired from milking cows to let Keithtake over the farm. 3 weeks into his retirement he was boredstiff and decided to get himself a few goats just to keep him-self busy. Word got around and we had heaps of calls fromshops wanting goats milk, so now he's milking up to 100 twicea day.

Goats are seasonal, which means that they all dry off for aperiod of 2 months each year. Goats milk has been found to begreat for people who are Lactose Intolerant. We have receivedrave reviews from people who have to drink goats’ milk formedical reasons or simply because they want to. They say it isthe best tasting goats’ milk and goats’ yoghurt they've evertried.

There is one downside with the goats: we are constantlyreplacing or repairing trees around the factory because theycan spot an open gate from a mile off and seize the opportuni-ty to do some damage. This can be frustrating when we are try-ing to have a nice garden in front of the factory. Very frustrat-ing!

We milk our 120 cows twice a day in a 28 cow rotary par-lour. Milking starts at approx. 5.30am and 4.00pm. One per-son can work the parlour on their own, but it is definitely eas-ier with two people. The Goats are milked in the same build-ing as the cows, but on a separate stationary platform with12goats in one row.

We grow our own feed grain on separate property . In December 2002, we started bottling our own milk under

the 'Maleny Dairies' Label. What an exciting time it was to seethe first bottles coming off the conveyor belt with their spunkynew labels.

The factory is only 60m from the dairy so it is situated per-fectly for our tours. Our visitors love sitting at the picnic tablesoverlooking the farm. You can't ask for a better view.

We process milk on Monday, Wednesday and Friday eachweek. We start at 10.00am and are usually finished by 12.00noon.

At the factory we have a Laboratory where we first test theraw milk, and then test again after it has been pasteurised.Samples are sent to the Government laboratory once a fort-night to verify our testing. All milk is kept chilled. There is an

The product range

Local marketing in action

official local authority audit once every twelve months. Wewere licensed for export for some goat products but found ittoo expensive for the return.

In the Processing room, we either pasteurise, homogeniseor separate the milk depending on what's required. Once themilk has been processed, it is then piped through to theBottling room.

In the Bottling room, the bottles are placed on the convey-or belt by hand, they then pass the labeller, the dater, andstraight onto the filler. A cap then falls on top and the machinetightens it up tight. The bottles then passes through a showerto wash the excess milk off and straight into the milk crateswhich are then stacked in the coldroom to await delivery. Thecoldroom holds 15,000 litres of milk. We checked out severaldairies in Queensland before deciding on the layout and findthat it works well but we do sometimes run out of space whenmaking large batches of yoghurt. We also have a drystorewhere we store the empty bottles, spare labels and containersof flavoured milk syrup.

We have a 10,000 litre tanker and pick up all the milk fromour supply farms. The tanker and other vehicles are paintedgold to reflect the Golden Guernsey. The cow motif was drawnfor the local Apex Club and is called the ‘Maleny Cow’. Thisadds to our local identity: Maleny folk talk about their cows,their factory and their operation.

Our range of products includes 4 types of white milk:Gold Top - Pasteurised onlyBlue Top - Pasteurised & HomogenisedRed Top - Low FatYellow Top - Skim

3 types of flavoured milks: Chocolate, Coffee & Strawberry

3 types of Cows Yoghurts: Natural Acidophilus, Apricot & Strawberry

2 types of Goats Yoghurts: Natural Acidophilus & Strawberry

Goats MilkGuernsey Cream

For the past few years we have entered all of our productsin the Brisbane Ekka and the Sydney Royal Easter Show.Every single product has won a Gold, Silver or Bronze at leastonce if not multiple times. We have won 51 medals. Our Skimmilk won Champion Milk in Sydney 2005 and our StrawberryYoghurt won Champion Yoghurt in Brisbane 2005.

We bottle 4,000 litres of fruit juice each week for anothercompany, while the local ice cream maker who is famousthroughout Australia makes his icecream using our milk andcream.

The water deliveries started when we had a long, very dryspell in Maleny. We were carting water for our factory, andlike all small towns, people started to hear about it and askedus to help with deliveries. We were able to utilise the milktanker, as it was only needed for milk a few hours a day. Weare often delivering water for up to 16hrs per day!

We have our own 10 pallet truck to carry our products toBrisbane and we also transport pallets from a local jam pro-ducer, we then bring milk bottles back from Brisbane. There is.

We sell cheese for a small cheese factory in Maleny and alsotake specialist and organic cheeses to Brisbane. All this helpsto keep the wheels turning at maleny Dairies.

Kate deals with the farm tours. With the dairy and the fac-tory on the same property it makes it very interesting for visi-tors to see the whole process.

Brochures are sent out to tour companies and local schools.200-400 people a week come through on tours. School chil-dren are given the opportunity to visit the farm and hopefullywill talk about it afterwards. The public can use the BBQ areasfree of charge - they can come out into the country and have apicnic on a farm and hopefully talk about it when they go home- all part of the marketing strategy.

Sometimes we get a couple of tour buses at once. We cantake about 25 people at a time on the farm and factory tours.A tour will generally take 1 1/4 hours, depending on the size ofthe group. School groups take at least 1 1/2 hours.

A tour guide takes visitors up to the baby animal pen to patthe baby goat and calf. We give a brief history of the farm andthe reason that we started Maleny Dairies. Visitors then headto the 'Dairy' to see where the cows and goats get milked.Children get to stand on the rotating platform and put their fin-gers in the cups to feel the suction. Then we go to the factoryso see where the milk is processed and bottled. Visitors watcha 6 minute DVD showing the process of milk from the cow tothe bottle and everything in between. At the conclusion of thetour they get to try some of the award winning flavoured milks.If time permits for school children, we have a question andanswer session and play a game. We charge $6.00 each foranyone 2 years and older

We don't have a cafeteria, but we do offer morning teaand/or lunches for groups of 20 or more. The undercover areaseats approx. 50 or 70 children adults to eat a meal. MalenyDairies is a working farm, so apart from some slight bumps, allareas are wheelchair accessible. We provide heaps of open areafor children to run around and just be kids.

Visitors enjoy the BBQ and “children’s play” areasat the farm