WA cheddar back on supermarket shelves

For the first time in 14 years, cheddar cheese made in WA from milk sourced from local dairy farms is about to appear on supermarket shelves, not just across WA but nationally.

Brownes Dairy, WA's oldest and largest dairy processor, aims to replace a portion of the 50,000 tonnes of cheese - 15,000t of it cheddar - imported into WA a year from interstate and New Zealand with its own products.

At its Brunswick Junction creamery - the heritage-listed former Peter's factory where its cheddar is made and stored - Brownes last week announced a retail move onto local and national cheese markets.

While the announcement was timed to capitalise on a consumer refocus towards home grown and locally made as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Brownes' plan to divert excess milk produced during the spring flush into premium cheddar was laid down several years ago.

Its stocks of vintage cheddar and light cheddar - which as 25 per cent less fat - have been ageing at Brunswick Junction for 24 months.

It's mature cheddar has aged for 12 months.

Also stored at Brunswick Junction, but not available until next year, is a vintage heritage reserve cheddar, aged for up to 36 months.

According to Natalie Sarich-Dayton, Brownes' national marketing and sales director, the vintage and mature cheddar is available now via Brownes' unique Milko home-delivery service to some Perth suburbs.

After disappearing decades ago, free milk home-delivery was reintroduced earlier this year to help households self-isolating because of COVID-19.

It proved so popular that six food vans driven by Brownes' marketing staff deliver a range of dairy products ordered online and it will continue, Ms Sarich-Dayton confirmed.

Browne's vintage and mature cheddar range will become generally available throughout WA and nationally in IGA supermarkets from Monday, August 24 and in Coles and Woolworths supermarkets during September, she said.

Brownes has made cheese since the 1930s to help soak up the extra milk its suppliers' dairy cows naturally produce during spring post calving and sustained by fresh pastures.

It started making cheese at Brunswick Junction in 1956 and, while it has never really stopped as Ms Sarich-Dayton pointed out, it cut back because it became uneconomic to cut up and wrap the 20 kilogram "bricks" that cheese is made in.

It could not compete on retail markets with much larger volume producers in the Eastern States and NZ.

The small volume of cheese bricks that continued to be made each year during the spring flush were sold to the Eastern States, third party vendors and more recently, exported to China.

Ironically for Chinese-owned Brownes, the 600-700t of cheddar it is now producing a year - building towards 1000t annually - will be marketed in Australia rather than sent to China.

The last Brownes' cheese to China went in December before the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted international trade.

Since then, freight charges have tripled and, according to Ms Sarich-Dayton, as one of China's largest cheese manufacturers, Brownes' parent company Shanghai Ground Food Tech does not need relatively small volumes of cheddar from WA.

Instead, Brownes is hoping to replicate with cheddar the penetration of Eastern States' markets by its yoghurts and a coffee-flavoured milk drink.

Brownes' WA-produced vanilla bean yoghurt is reputedly now Australia's second most popular flavour behind an interstate competitor's natural Greek-style yoghurt and a premium milk coffee drink produced at Brownes' Balcatta plant has doubled sales in the east.

Master cheesemaker Donald Simpson, who started making cheese 45 years ago as a 16-year-old, has been joined by three other cheesemakers among the 10 extra jobs created at the Brunswick Junction factory.

According to Ms Sarich-Dayton, a gradual increase in the wholesale price of cheese over the past three years has made it feasible for Brownes to re-enter the retail cheddar market at the top end.

"We've been very selective with the type of product we produce," Ms Sarich-Dayton said.

"We still can't compete on cost at the lower end - the mass-produced under $10 a kilogram market," she said.

She described the launch of a locally-produced cheddar as a "landmark event" for the WA dairy industry.

"It is incredibly important for local dairy farmers because it's the first time in a long time there's been a sink for the excess milk produced in the State," Ms Sarich-Dayton said.

"The spring flush has always been a challenge because we haven't had a capability to process that much milk (or a sustainable market for the extra milk produced only for a limited time)."

She said Brownes had invested $3 million in cutting and wrapping technology and equipment at the Brunswick factory to produce cheddar and a further $7m expenditure was budgeted.

The final element of that expenditure will be equipment to process the unwanted whey from cheese making, Ms Sarich-Dayton said.

Brownes has an environmental licence to spread whey over designated farm paddocks but at the same time has to buy in additional protein for its yoghurt production.

Processing the whey could replace the bought-in protein for yoghurt and could also be a base for high-protein animal feed, turning what is a substantial cheese making waste disposal cost into an additional revenue stream.

Brownes wrote to its dairy farmer suppliers in 2018 looking for expressions of interest from those prepared to expand production in a carefully managed way to accommodate its cheddar-making plans.

It indicated about 45 suppliers have expressed an interest.

After the latest round of contract negotiations in June under the new mandatory dairy code of conduct, Brownes has retained all of its 51 suppliers and is understood to have had enquiry from some Harvey Fresh and Lion Dairy & Drinks suppliers.

Busselton-based rural consultant Steve Hossen welcomed Brownes' announcement it was turning spring flush excess milk into premium cheddar cheese that can be stored and released onto retail markets as required.

"It (cheddar production) will take some of the pressure off local dairy farmers trying to flatten their production curve across the season (shifting peak milk production from spring to summer when it would normally fall away)," Mr Hossen said.

"When you look around dairy farms these days, there's a lot of concrete (feed pads and feed storage areas) devoted to trying to flatten the curve and that costs a lot of money.

"For Brownes suppliers there is an opportunity to grow their production without the extra costs involved in producing more milk over summer."

Two years ago in a report commissioned by WAFarmers dairy section, Mr Hossen predicted WA's dairy industry would transition from a "volume-constrained drinking milk market" to a "mixed market" of drinking milk and some secondary processing of commodities with longer shelf-life to balance seasonal production peaks and troughs.

Premier looking forward to cheddar range

WITH three children aged 11 to 17, WA Premier Mark McGowan admits his family "goes through a bucket load of cheese" a week and he was looking forward to Brownes Dairy's new cheddar range.

"My family is a huge consumer of your products," Mr McGowan told Brownes representatives last week when he visited the Brunswick Junction depot and cheese factory to help launch the cheddar range.

"Western Australia has some of the finest and safest fresh produce in the world and it is really exciting to have a new locally-produced cheddar cheese back in production," Mr McGowan said.

"Buying local and supporting our local primary industries and food value adding sector is so important, particularly as we continue on a path of economic recovery from a challenging few months."

Agriculture and Food Minister Alannah MacTiernan said the dairy industry was an important contributor to WA's economy, with annual production valued at $188 million, about 140 dairy farmers and an estimated 800 people employed in dairy processing.

"Bringing back the WA-made cheddar cheese is great news for our South-West dairy farmers with Brownes planning to increase its milk intake from 129 million litres to 140mL this year to support production," Ms MacTiernan said.

Brownes managing director Tony Girgis said, "It's exciting to be going back to our roots and giving the people of WA a local product that they've certainly missed".

"Consumers probably don't think about their fresh cheese travelling across the Nullabor, but until now that's what has been happening.

"We are supporting the local dairy industry by introducing a family staple back into WA supermarkets," he said.