According to Made By Cow CEO Wade Porter, the firm’s milk has a shelf life of six weeks which is long enough to support exports to most countries in Asia, as opposed to regular milk which generally has a 21-day shelf life.
“This is because we pasteurize the milk after it is bottled, whereas most other milk companies will pasteurise in big batches and then do the bottling, giving them a three-week shelf-life,” Porter said to FoodNavigator-Asia.
“We’re talking to companies in various countries about exporting later this year – the priorities will be countries with similar regulatory requirements such as Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the like.”
“New Zealand [is also on the radar], but we’re still looking at the regulatory requirements there, and we’re also looking at many others such including China.”
In addition to shelf-life, Made By Cow is also confident that the creamy taste of its milk will be a driving factor for success.
“Our milk also has a raw milk taste profile as it is full cream and has 5.1% content of fat – consumers have good memories of this upon trying it.”
From juice to dairy
Porter added that both the milk’s long shelf-life and creamy taste were the product of Made By Cow’s global-patented cold high-pressure processing (HPP) pasteurisation technology which ‘knocks out’ pathogens in the milk, but still maintains the viability of smaller molecules such as vitamins and enzymes, so it has the ‘same nutritional profile as raw milk’.
“Made By Cow’s milk is the most premium product in Australia, and we’ve already seen 60% growth in premium independent channels,” he said.
“Our technology uses 12,500 kilogrammes of water pressure to pasteurise the raw milk from our farm – this is collected in the morning, bottled raw, pasteurised within 36 hours and delivered to consumers within 52 hours.”
The technology was transferred over by the company from its original usage within the juice industry by companies that did not want to use preservatives to increase shelf-life.
“We took this to Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) to get approval, and are the only dairy company approved that does not utilise heat pasteurisation,” said Porter.
Trends: Premium dairy in Australia
Locally, Made By Cow is also hoping to ride on the premium milk demand trend, once saying that they could be the ‘next a2 milk’.
“Premium dairy is in high demand in Australia – consumers are looking for whole food products such as ours, as well as for the complete nutrition [the milk provides] such as the enzymes and vitamins still available in our products,” said Porter.
The company’s milk is currently retailing at AUD5.99 (US$4.12) for 1.5 litres, and is available in over 550 premium outlets including supermarkets and health food stores in Australia.
“The price may be somewhat higher but consumers can taste the difference and know of the health benefits, that the viable vitamins and enzymes can benefit gut health and digestion,” added Porter.
He added that the price point of commoditised milk in the country ‘is likely to go up’ in the future too as consumers and retailers ‘are starting to understand’ the struggles of dairy farmers in the country.