MALENY Dairies factory owners Ross and Sally Hopper are living the dream after fears deregulation would result in the family farm being sold off in 2000. The couple, along with Ross brother Keith and his wife Sonya, made the decision to return to the property after their parents, Harold and Dorothy, were forced to scale back the main operation. Deregulation saw my father looking to sell the farm and so us kids decided to come back ... my brother took over the milking and my sister gave us a hand with the tourism side of things and my wife and I have got the factory, so it all works really well, Ross said. I had a couple of other businesses on the go at the time, which werent farming related, and so instead of chopping up the farm, we did this. It was our intention to diversify the property. The writing was on the wall with the price of milk and it wasnt going to be great and the cost of farming was out of hand, so we decided to do something a little different. Finding a niche market in Guernsey milk certainly set the dairy apart, with the factory processing about 90,000L per week of predominantly Guernsey milk. Its our signature milk. When youre an independent, you have to be different, otherwise it wont sell and so we also have yoghurt, cream, custards and flavoured milk to set us apart. Ross said the family worked closely with a food technologist to find the best recipes for their customers. We wouldnt have got anywhere without the support of the community and now we have over 40 employees and we take milk from nine other farms. I love getting feedback from our customers and even with the recent Halal thing, weve had a lot of people contact us. Ross said Maleny Dairies had received major support after publicly declaring the company would not pursue Halal certification. We kept getting phone calls and emails about people wondering whether we would be or were planning to be Halal certified and to save people asking us we just thought wed put it on Facebook and blow me down if it didnt create more phone calls and emails. We just dont want people to get super excited over it because they seem to be a bit nasty with each other, which was not our intention. Ross said the family had never planned to include the certification in the business model and although they were unsure of the costs involved, would prefer to see any money spent stay in the country. Even if it costs $1, its money Id rather give to our farmers than to some other organisation. With Keith at the helm of the dairy, Ross said running the business was a dream come true. Its good to be able to stand on your own two feet. We stayed because of the tourism opportunities and, right from the start, that was in our business model and its been great to see that thrive. With more than 20,000 people going through the property every year on regular farm tours, Ross said he was happy to see people were still interested in where their food comes from. People can come and see where their milk is coming from and it certainly improves the consumer support. It doesnt matter whether its young kids going on their first date looking for somewhere casual or pre-schoolers and day cares, right through to retirement villages coming on a bus trip from Toowoomba - everyone is welcome. The Guernsey-based business is set to expand in the future, with a number of farms lining up to supply the factory. We certainly want to be able to sell more milk and take on more farms and keep it viable and were confident about the future.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 10:36:56 +0000