In Germany, consumers can choose from milk from cows that still have their horns, or from cows fed entirely on grass and hay, all sold at premium prices.
Consumer demand like that shows New Zealand’s traditional grass-fed system is hugely important to maintain, Lewis Road Creamery’s Peter Cullinane says.
Lewis Road has labelled its products from the beginning as free from palm kernel.
The Lewis Road Organic Non-Homogenised Milk is the company’s top seller, which was a complete surprise, Peter says.
“It’s intriguing. What that tells us is people absolutely want food as unadulterated as possible – people want dairy the way it should be.
“What people put down their throat is important.”
The success of Lewis Road Creamery is an indication of a possible future for the dairy industry that doesn’t involve just bulk volume and milk powder.
Lewis Road is the biggest single contributor to supermarket growth, according to IRI-Aztec research.
After a few years in the market, it controls 50% of the organic white milk market and more than 50% of the flavoured milk market, and turned over $40 million in retail sales last year.
The NZ organic milk market has doubled since they started and is the only part of the milk market showing any growth, Peter says.
“I hope in a small way that what we are doing is showing there’s an opportunity to produce quality dairy products and there is a market for them in NZ. And if there is a market in NZ there is a much bigger market in other countries.
“I don’t expect NZ will become organic overall, but I do believe we will see NZ as a producer of high-end products and at the top of that has to be organic.”
There needs to be a commonsense balance from NZ dairy producers between volume and producing high-end quality products.
“This drive to volume at all costs, is going to be at all cost.”
Lewis Road is still focused on meeting NZ market demands, but has its sights set on overseas expansion, Peter says.
They are also looking to further combine with other leading NZ products, such as they did with Whittakers in its successful chocolate milk product.
Oekodorf Brodowin – organic milk from Brodowin eco-village, outside Berlin. Milk is produced in a fully biological system. It’s non-homogenised, which is why they advise to shake the bottle. It comes in either a bottle or a recyclable plastic container. Customers rinse and return the bottles and caps to the supermarket to get 25 cents back and they are reused. A part of the sale price for the milk is invested back into preserving the biodiversity and landscape of the Brodowin region.
