How Lactalis Australia Gets Milk
From Cow To Cup

Each morning the same herd of cows wait for Gordon at the milking gate before first light, knowing very well that those first in line are first out. Then there are the lazy ones, the ones that would rather sleep in and force Gordon to round them up every morning. His favourites are Blue Mac, Colin, and Fleetwood – named after the iconic band.

From 6.30am to 8am and 4.30pm to 7pm, 338 Holstein cows filter through Gordon’s rotary milking system. There’s are a few moos and a lot of push and shove, but under Gordon’s watchful eye and that of his four-legged canine companions, it’s business as usual.

TRADITION TALKS

The cows are incentivised with feed, and each spend about nine minutes in one rotation on the merry-go-round with milking pumps manually fitted. Each cow will produce on average 25 litres of milk per day. In spring, the amount of milk increases thanks to the lush and abundant supply of grass, which Gordon describes as “the cheapest and best” food source for cows. Hay is second best.

As such, Gordon is careful to rotate his cows into his 30-day paddocks and night paddocks, each spanning about two to four hectares across Gordon’s 250-hectare property in Gippsland, Victoria. It’s a well-practiced rotation system.

Gordon is a third-generation dairy farmer. His grandfather, Stanley Herbert Lockett, or Grandad Lockett as Gordon calls him, started the farm in mid 1924 on soldier settlement land. In those days, Grandad Lockett hand milked 25 to 30 cows, producing just a couple of gallons of milk a day.

When he passed away, Gordon’s father Stanley John Lockett followed in his footsteps at just 15 years of age. He was one of the first in the area to install a mechanical milking station, in what was considered innovative at the time. Like their great grandfather, Gordon’s sons continue to search for improved technology and techniques that will change the face of dairy farming.

MODERN AGE

Just down the road at Wood-Swallow farm in Neerim North, Gordon’s son Ben Lockett takes a hands-off approach to dairy farming. Just this year, Ben installed a robotic milking system (RMS), meaning he can enjoy his bacon and eggs for breakfast while his cows visit the RMS station on their own accord – it only took three days to teach the cows the new daily procedure. But like Gordon’s herd, there are always a handful of slackers that need fetching and an extra push to deliver the white liquid gold.

After an initial mapping to identify each cow, the sensor-based system recalls the exact position of the cow’s teats and attaches pumps via sensors, one by one. The system measures the milk flow and cuts off pumps individually when it detects a slowing pattern.

Like an Apple Watch system, the cow’s daily movements are recorded thanks to an electronic tag near the cow’s chewing muscle. The cow’s daily step count is monitored to ensure the correct ratio of feed intake to produce the optimum milk output. If any levels spike or plummet, it could indicate illness or pregnancy and Ben is alerted of the cows that need attention. Like Big Brother, Ben is always watching, although he admits he doesn’t see particular cows for three weeks thanks to the new system.

“A RMS is no quicker than using the rotary method but it is more hands-off,” Ben says. “People have said this method results in five litres more milk than with the rotary system, but it’s still early days for us.”

Recently, Gordon took his 87-year-old mother to see the new RMS system.

“At first she said ‘dad would probably say you’re bloody mad. Milk those cows the way you’re supposed to.’ But then he’d see it and say, ‘it’s the best thing you’ve ever done.’

“There’s plenty of people that have said there’s no farming future here, but if you don’t progress, you get left behind.”

For some, just like coffee producers, the city lights have called, and they close up shop and sell their property to neighbours, but the Lockett family see the value in staying put. Years ago, when Victorian dairy farmers were struggling with poor milk prices, Lactalis came to Gordon with an offer too good to refuse and he’s stayed loyal ever since.

CHANGING MARKET CLIMATE

Twenty years ago, farmers were paid by the litre. These days, Australian milk prices are based on the amount of butter fat and protein solid content in the milk supply.

Every second day, a Lactalis Australia tanker comes to collect Gordon’s milk supply, which is driven to Lactalis’ processing facility in Rowville to start the commercial production and delivery of Gordon and Ben’s milk supply.

On arrival, the milk is tested for temperature, composition, and antibiotics. The milk fills several thousand two-litre bottles every hour, is packed into crates, and directly fed into Lactalis’ cool room where they remain until pick up, which can be as short as 20 minutes.

The day after collection, Gordon receives a text message highlighting his milk’s cell count, protein level, and butter fat volume. Lactalis Australia Foodservice Brand Manager Jane Clarke says this balance of fat and protein is needed to produce the perfect microfoam when textured with coffee.

“Some roasters like to use Pauls Professional Café Crema because of its profile, or Pauls Professional Smarter White Juggler with only 2 per cent fat, but the most popular is our Pauls Professional Full Cream which sits in the sweet spot. It pairs with the variety of most blends and supports delicate floral and fruity notes of coffee. People think that one type of milk has to suit all types of coffees, but that’s why we invite people to try our range. We have a milk to match everyone’s needs. What works for one might not work with another.”

To keep dairy farmers involved in the crop to cup philosophy, Lactalis invites its farmers to supplier meetings every few months to explain what their produce becomes and sample the Lactalis Foodservice range of products from yoghurts to cheese and milk.

One hundred per cent fresh milk is processed through Lactalis facilities is sourced from Australian Dairy Farms.

Glenn Geoghegan, Lactalis’ Farm Services South/Eastern Victoria, says transparency is key to building a Lactalis community of trust and respect.

SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

On arrival at Chris and Charmaine Bagot’s farm in Jindivick, a 100,000-litre Lactalis Australia tanker was collecting the daily supply of milk, which has to be cooled to 4°C, otherwise it can be rejected for unsafe storage levels. The tanker driver tests the milk for butter fat and protein levels before collection.

After 12 years working as a dairy farmer, Chris took the plunge to build a new milking facility on his 200-hectare farm. With the help of long-time colleague and friend Gabriel Hakim from AgVet Energy, a new 50-unit rotary dairy was designed and built to be more energy efficient and environmentally friendly. The new dairy can cater for 600 cows and 20,000 litres of milk each day.

“Traditionally, the power required to run a dairy farm is huge. You use large amounts of energy to heat water for cleaning the milking machines, and to cool the milk for storage. People think we use the most power on our pump system but it’s the milk cooling and the hot water that chew it up,” Chris says.

His goal was to reduce electricity demand, operating costs, and greenhouse gas emissions. To do this, Chris took a different approach by removing the need to heat water to high temperatures and changing the way milk could be cooled.

To deal with milking machine cleaning, he installed a low temperature, reuse cleaning system. To address milk cooling, Chris created an energy storage system (a bit like a cold storage battery) to take advantage of the 45 kilowatt solar PV system he also installed. He uses the sun’s energy to do most of the cooling work required to get milk down to 4ºC for collection.

“For cleaning the milking machine we use 87 per cent less energy, 38 per cent less water, and have up to 96 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions. Chemicals used for cleaning have also dramatically reduced. Overall, it has had a beneficial impact on the environment.”

To clean his milking machines daily, Chris uses waste heat to heat the wash solutions to about 50°C. Instead of discarding the solution after cleaning, he recovers and stores it for the next clean. This method uses up to 87 per cent less energy than a conventional hot water dependent cleaning system that requires 90°C wash solutions.

With his Green Cleaning System, it costs Chris just 50 cents to $5.68. He uses 1300 litres of water, 1.1 litres of chemicals on average, and just three to 27 kilowatts of energy each day. Previously, with a traditional system, Chris was using 90 to 150 kilowatt hours of energy at $15.82 to $27.27, 2100 litres of water, and 1.6 litres of chemicals each day.

Earlier this year, Chris demonstrated his Green Cleaning System to Lily D’Ambrosio, Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change Minister for Suburban Development, who promised just a few minutes on her fleeting visit, but instead stayed over an hour.

“If you had 10 farmers in a room and talked about it you’d get few to listen. Many would not be interested until they could see it working and shown evidence of the savings,” Chris says.

Chris and Charmaine are also passionate about land care and have committed to planting native trees and plants in an effort to give back to the environment.

Innovation in dairy farming is an important consideration for the future, but so is Chris’s coffee consumption. He has a Nespresso machine at home, is partial to a flat white, and visits Frankie’s Café in Warragul occasionally for a barista-made coffee. He’s well aware the milk his farm produces each day is celebrated in cafés and enjoyed by more than 90 per cent of Australia’s coffee drinkers each day.

“It’s satisfying to see where your produce goes. I’m a coffee lover so to know that our milk ends up in the cups of many cafés and customers’ coffee is really incredible,” Chris says.

“Even if I admit to drinking a Nescafé Gold Intense: 8 in the morning.”

For more information, visit www.parmalat.com.au