Happy Cows
win Prizes
By Kent Barker
We had a wonderful milkman when I lived in Greenwich in the 1980s.
His name was Doug Mullins, known to all as Dougie, and he followed his father
into the trade, eventually replacing their old red and white handcart with one
of those new-fangled electric milk floats.
I was thinking of Dougie just the other day and reflecting on how
rare doorstep milk deliveries have become.
When he died in 1991 there was no one to take over his round. But even as late as 1995 doorstep deliveries
accounted for 45% of all household purchases of milk. Now it’s less than 3%.
The trend has been largely driven by the big supermarkets. The average
price of home-delivered milk is currently 81p a pint, against 24.8p from
retailers. The downward pressure on
prices has meant that milk production is simply uneconomic on its own. The
average price paid to the farmer is 21p per litre. The average cost of production is 27p.
So when I visited our local dairy farmer I was expecting a catalogue
of woes, and predictions of imminent demise.
But not a bit of it, they’re busy expanding their animals along with
their product range. The Manfords have been running a dairy herd at Hinxden
Farm for eighty-five years. Now they
have two. Holsteins and Guernseys. 250 cows in milk and another 150 younger
stock waiting to be put into calf. The Holsteins are the more productive, each
giving an average of 9000 litres a year, while the Guernsey’s come in at around
6000 litres – though many think it’s a creamier, tastier product.
The point is that they are only losing money on about half of their
production. That half they sell to a
wholesaler. Milk taken away by tanker from
any dairy farm will be mixed with produce from a number of other herds. It may
sit around for several days before it gets to the supermarket shelf. And prior to that it will have been homogenised.
A process where the fat droplets are broken down under pressure so the cream
doesn’t separate. But some worry that smaller fat molecules bypass the digestive system and
instead are absorbed into the bloodstream.
The remainder of the Manfords’ milk has a rather different
story. It is simply pasteurised – heat
treated - and then bottled immediately.
It leaves the farm within 24 hours and is delivered to local shops,
schools and homes straight away. The
Channel Island brand comes from the Guernsey’s alone. Then there are three
types of cream, two cheeses and a clutch of different yoghurts. It’s quite labour intensive with 14 employees
including drivers for the four vans that do the milk rounds. And, naturally, it’s a bit more expensive,
averaging 68p a pint delivered. But Dee
Manford, who’s married to one of the three Hinxden Dairy partners, says that
people are becoming increasingly aware of what they are eating and are prepared
to pay a premium for better, fresher products. “We have happy cows. And if they’re happy and well fed and well
cared for, they produce better milk”.
Now you may think this is bunkum. How can you tell a happy cow from an unhappy
one? Well, all I can say is that,
walking round the farm, it’s hard to avoid the impression that they are pretty
content. It’s too wet for them to be
turned out to pasture so they’re still in roomy cattle sheds or wandering freely
around the yard munching silage. And
they keep coming up to nuzzle or lick your hand. There’s a nursery where the young calves are
raised with nanny caring for both black and white or tan-brown wards.
Dee would say the results speak for themselves. At the International Dairy Festival in Cheshire,
their Guernsey Whole Milk won first prize and their Holstein Whole milk took
second. Then at the recent ‘Taste of
Kent’ awards their Channel Islands (Guernsey) cream won the Dairy section.
So the point of this story is that it’s really rather nice
to be able to report something positive in farming and to see a small business
buck the trend and find a niche that enables them not just to survive but grow.
The herd started with 5 cows on 35 acres. Now they’re expanding beyond 400
cattle, with more than 700 acres available.
Nationally we have a million fewer dairy cows than we did 20 years ago –
a 27% reduction.
Mind you it’s hard work. At Hinxden they milk at 4.00 am and
3.00 pm 365 days a year. Dee says she
sometimes finishes calving around 1.00 am, just in time to greet the early
shift arriving to prepare the milking parlour.
Such discomforts are quite clearly compensated by the huge pride in
their achievement – and in the quality of their product.
ends
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