Steve: We started Gippsland Jersey with my dairy farm and as we’ve grown, other farmers have supplied milk. A tanker goes to farms, consolidates the milk and takes it to the factory to be processed. Then it goes out to shops.
In 2016, a couple of big dairy co-ops dropped their milk prices overnight in the middle of the financial year, saying they’d been overpaying for months. It hurt the industry. The only positive was that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has ensured it won’t happen again – minimum prices are now set for each financial year.
When we started the business, we didn’t have money or a credit rating so we crowd-funded and then financed an old refrigerator van, which gave us a credit rating. Then we built our factory. Now, bank managers put themselves on the line for us because they believe in what we’re about.
Sallie: Steve and I didn’t know each other well when we went into business but three months after we first talked about it, we had milk in a bottle.
After 2016, we needed to bring some positivity back to the industry. The pressure was so high that a few dairy farmers had taken their own lives, including my dad. He worked 18 hours a day and nothing could keep him down, but his world started crashing.
Steve wanted to control milk prices and I was full of grief and wanted to honour Dad. He’d built a dairy factory in the ’80s but by 2016, it was run-down. Steve spent a year reviving the factory and we’ve been there six years now. We’re about to buy a cheese factory with the support of CommBank, which will double our business.
Our business has three pillars: pay farmers a fair price;, build social change around mental health;, and promote kindness. Each year, I publish a calendar with farmers’ stories and people have told me they were brave enough to seek mental health support after reading the stories. It gives me goosebumps.
