The cream of the crop

Maleny Dairies owners Ross and Sally Hopper ... “Our secret is what we don’t do to our dairy products.”

Maleny Dairies has added to a long list of achievements by winning a gold medal for its Real Cream at the prestigious 2020 delicious/Harvey Norman Produce Awards last week.

Owner Ross Hopper said there were no hidden secrets to Maleny Dairies award-winning products. In fact, the opposite was true.

“Our secret is what we don’t do to our dairy products,” he said. “What the cows give us is what we put in the bottle or tub. We don’t add permeates or extenders or anything like that. We don’t standardise our milk. Quality is the result.”

Now in its 15th year, the Awards celebrate the country’s new, innovative, native and consistently outstanding Australian ingredients produced with dedication, passion, knowledge and regard for the environment.

Mr Hopper was proud to be serving a quality product and supporting farmers in the struggling industry.

“We’ve got 13 farms supplying us. The furthest afield now are Toowoomba and Lockyer Valley. About a decade ago we might have been only doing about 25,000 litres of milk a week. Now we probably average about 260,000 litres.”

Maleny Dairies products cost a little more because of its quality and because they paid farmers a fair price.

“If we pay our farmers the right price, we get decent milk from them. If we then look after the milk, with minimal processing and we don’t tamper with the structure of the milk, it tastes better. What cows produce is what the customers get. We don’t fiddle with it and we’re not short changing you by skimming the cream off the top.”

Mr Hopper aimed to take on more farmers, depending on sales.

“The more milk we can sell, the more farmers we can help stay on the land. We’ve got a line-up who want to supply us. It comes down to sales.”

Dairying goes high tech

Maleny Dairies manufacture their own milk bottles at the Maleny site and have introduced robotics to held load and unload crates for cleaning and re-packing. They have expanded with two new distribution centers, one at Caboolture and one at the Gold Coast, where they send about 12 semis of milk a week.

Ross was pleased sales held through the coronavirus pandemic.

“We had a smidgen increase,” he said. “What we put it down to is people don’t really want to deal with multinationals. They can see what’s happened worldwide, and they want to look after their own backyards and they’re supporting their farmers.”