Pioneering organic dairy produce since 1987

Cathy and Jamie run BioFarm, one of the earliest of New Zealand’s certified organic farms.

Both have been farming since the late 1970s and see keeping the family farm viable as the way of the future.

In 1987 the couple bought Jamie’s grandfather’s farm at public auction, along with some of Jamie’s siblings whom they bought-out by 2000.

“It would have gone to housing if we could not have made a return on capital and there was no way we’d make that if we relied on the payout coming from the dairy company,” Jamie said.

Long story short, the purchase of the farm put the couple in huge debt, a month before the ’87 sharemarket crash and in the days of 20 per cent-plus interest rates. Debt servicing (interest only) was greater than the gross income, but the farm couldn’t be sold to cover debt, as a bureaucratic oversight meant the debt was not registered against the farm title. This financial situation forced an immediate re-think about how to make money out of dairy.

In the highly regulated market of the era, they weren’t permitted to sell milk from the farm gate, let alone on the open market.

“We did everything to generate cash flow including growing potatoes, brassicas, lettuce and grain for the production of a BioFarm bread range. One day the suggestion was made to try producing yoghurt and over the years we have focused on yoghurt,” Cathy said.

The problem with the usual dairy equation is that milk is 86 per cent water and New Zealand’s common dairy business model is based on selling bulk milk powder with a return of around $1 per litre gross income.

With yoghurt, by contrast, one litre of milk becomes one litre of yoghurt and puts BioFarm at the top of the dairy value chain with a gross return closer to $4 per litre. To ‘add value’ BioFarm keeps the water in.

Certified organic since 1987, BioFarm is one of New Zealand’s pioneering organic food producers and is still run by its original owners. Its specialty is that it produces both the raw material (milk) and the finished product on the one farm.

Selling yoghurt also meant getting into marketing. “We built the organic yoghurt market from the ground. There was no existing market and yoghurt at the time was a new thing. People were beginning to travel more and they’d seen yoghurt overseas. BioFarm was the only yoghurt in the country made from fresh milk and even though yoghurt has been made for thousands of years, I worked out how to make whole fresh yoghurt here using only milk and cultures,” Jamie said.

Cathy and Jamie developed their own marketing plan based strongly around a recognised brand and a loyal customer base. Thirty years on and BioFarm’s products are in supermarkets all over New Zealand.

Today BioFarm products virtually sell themselves. The marketing targets the top shelf and Cathy and Jamie found it was cheaper to keep existing customers than to buy new ones.

The first BioFarm yoghurt was produced at a Palmerston North town-milk factory, but the factory soon closed down so they developed their own MPI-approved processing facility on the farm in 1987. The factory has gradually been expanded to include a cool store and packing area.

The farm, 600 acres of fertile river flat is only minutes from Palmerston North. It runs 200 dairy cattle – New Zealand’s only herd of polled friesians, bred on-farm, with an equally hornless flock of Drysdale sheep for the meat trade. Around 1000 goats and a growing beef herd also specifically bred for their meat value, are to be sold under the EcoFarm brand.

It milks 100 – 120 dairy cows all year round for a daily quota of 2,000 litres.

“The establishing of diversity can mean that risk is lessened and resilience is enhanced. Fifty years ago, it was called ‘getting your farm viable’. Today it’s called sustainable intensification,” Jamie said.

While BioFarm is certified as ‘Organic’, Jamie doesn’t see the description as anything mysterious. “In 1940 every farm in New Zealand was organic. Organic today is simply a protection to make sure the consumer gets the product they expect to get. It is a food quality assurance standard,” Jamie said.

The dairy product range these days includes BioFarm Acidophilus Yoghurt, Low Fat Yoghurt, Bush Honey Yoghurt, Wild Apple Yoghurt, EcoFarm pasteurised whole milk and BioFarm is the distributor for Organic Times organic butter. The yoghurts are ‘pouring yoghurt’ best suited to breakfast cereal, smoothies and a cream replacer with desserts.

At BioFarm Jamie is the Operations Manager of the factory and makes the yoghurt every day. He is also the farm ecologist, managing soil and pasture in alignment with what is happening with the seasons.

Cathy’s domain is the day to day management of the dairy herd. She also receives orders from the market and ensures the timely delivery of fresh products to distributors and stores throughout New Zealand, and deals with compliance requirements.

Having an established farm-based business for more than 40 years has enabled Cathy and Jamie to use both extended family and the local community for secure longterm employment purposes. As their grown-up children become more involved in both the day-to-day management and governance of the business, sustainability continues to be their objective.

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