Goulburn Valley Creamery has announced an opening price of up to $9/kg of milk solids for exclusive 2025-26 supply.
The company is also recruiting an extra 140 million litres of milk to meet customer demand for the coming year.
And a $20 million investment to improve processing capacity, storage and product range is under way at its Kyabram facility in northern Victoria.
Goulburn Valley Creamery chief executive officer Mancel Hickey said increased export opportunities and a strong business growth strategy means more milk and processing capability is needed to meet demand.
“We want to significantly increase our volumes to leverage our secured export opportunities and continue to expand direct markets for Goulburn Valley dairy farmers,” Mr Hickey said.
“Our competitive opening price reflects the importance we place on our farmers, but it’s just the start of the conversation we have with our suppliers and the reason they join us.
“We are really looking to do things a bit differently to the rest of the industry, and that’s reflected in how we work and engage with our suppliers.”
Established in 2020, GVC makes a range of dairy products for high-value export markets, including South-East Asia.
Newly appointed Farm Supply Dairy general manager Scott Sieben joined GVC in May to work closely with and grow the company’s farmer supplier base.
“Scott is on board to drive our relationship with new and existing farmers, as well as lead market growth and oversee our strategy related to farm milk supply and trading,” Mr Hickey said.
“He has an exceptionally deep understanding of the Australian dairy industry from multiple angles — as a past dairy farmer himself, as well as in key senior leadership roles such as executive chair of Australian Dairy Farmers Corporation.
“He directly understands the complexity and challenges dairy farmers face, working hard to genuinely partner for mutual success.”
Mr Sieben pointed to GVC’s operational model that keeps the farmer firmly in mind, prioritising honest and transparent partnerships.
“It is crucially important to us that we have our farmers front and centre of all that we do,” he said.
“It is about expanding market opportunities and sharing success with our farmer partners.
“The best way we can do that is to develop strong, direct relationships with all of them.”
GVC said it was expanding the storage capacity, throughput and product processing capability of its Kyabram site with a $20 million investment.
The works program started in March and will run through to the end of 2025.
Mr Hickey said the increased capacity is designed to handle the additional volumes being sought from farmers for processing into export product for end-use customers.
All GVC milk supply agreements are available at: https://gvcreamery.com/farmers
The announced prices apply for the 2025-26 season from July 1 for exclusive and non-exclusive supply.
For more information, farmers can contact Scott Sieben on 0438 848 310 or scott.sieben@gvcreamery.com