The joint venture, between the Waituhi Kuratau Trust and the Shanghai Maui Food Company will lease a 490ha farm owned by the Maori trust near Taupo milking 2500 sheep but with the potential to source milk from other suppliers.
Maui Milk manager Peter Gatley said there was potential for dozens of farms to supply milk to the company.
The milk will initially be dried at Waikato Innovation Park at Ruakura and the powder exported to China to be sold as an alternative for those who cannot drink cow’s milk.
Gatley said the Shanghai Maui Food Company needed an alternative source of sheep milk after Blue River Dairy in Southland was last year sold to another Chinese company, Blueriver Nutrition HK.
At the same time Waituhi Kuratau Trust was looking for a business partner.
Maui Milk, Blue River, a fledgling sheep milking business being developed by Landcorp and some artisan producers are the extent of the NZ sheep-milking industry but Gatley said diverse markets and product range would ensure the industry would not become a commodity supplier.
“The volume is very small, the markets are quite diverse and product-mix is quite diverse.”
He envisaged Maui Milk eventually taking and processing milk from a variety of suppliers as cow milk processors did.
An economic unit would be 500 or more ewes with the lactation of specialist sheep milking breeds lasting seven to eight months and producing up to two litres of milk a ewe a day.
Sheep milk has more milksolids than milk from cows or goats, 17-18% compared to 11-12%
Gatley said an individual sheep can gross $500 of milk a lactation compared to a traditional crossbred ewe producing lambs and wool which can gross $130-$140 a head.
This means sheep milking is an alternative for farmers wanting to intensively farm land but did not want or could not convert to milking cows.
Initially, Maui would produce pure milk powder for the Chinese market, which did not require lengthy accreditation or have to meet the strict controls required for infant formula.
Gatley said the next product would likely by a long-life, liquid milk.
Maui was also investing in improved sheep genetics and milking technology suited to sheep rather than using technology made for milking goats.
It had been looking to the French sheep-milking industry for those genetics and technology.
