Ross Hopper might be the first processor Dairy News Australia has ever done a feature story on.
He doesn’t own a farm or have any cows, but what Mr Hopper does have is a factory that has saved dairy farms in his region and produces a trusted Queensland brand.
Family support, the Guernsey cow and good old fashioned stubbornness made it all possible.
The Maleny Dairies logo likely rings a few bells for Sunshine State locals — the cartoon Guernsey cow, the shady green and the honest packaging.
For those outside Queensland, this might be the first time you’re hearing about it.
“We’re a Guernsey milk brand,” Mr Hopper said.
“That’s what my dad had and it’s now our point of difference. You can’t charge a gourmet milk price with Friesian milk, because everything else is Friesian milk.
“We pasteurise 260,000 litres of milk a week at the moment, and we’ve got the ability to go up to 500,000 litres.
“We’ve got 12 farmers who supply us, and all of their herds are majority Guernsey or Jersey, which is our second choice breed.”
Maleny Dairies products are stocked across Queensland in IGA supermarkets, and in the south-east corner the cartoon Guernsey can also be found in all Woolworths and Coles supermarkets.
Despite 18 years in the business and paying the highest farm gate milk prices in Queensland, Maleny Dairies is yet to fail.
In fact, Mr Hooper just put in a new pasteurising machine, lifting the factory’s capacity to 13,000 litres an hour — and he didn’t need to sell off any essential organs to the bank.
“We just do our plans and see where we can save money. We do our sums,” Mr Hopper said.
The 49-year-old used to be an earthmoving business owner and tow truck man before his and wife Sally’s careers suddenly took a turn into dairy processing.
It all began with the dairy industry’s deregulation in 2000.
“Dad said he was going to sell the farm because of deregulation,” Mr Hopper said.
“He could see the writing on the wall, but we said ‘don’t sell it, don’t sell it’.
“We wanted to keep the land but he said if you’re not interested I’m going to sell it.”
The ultimatum given out by old Harold Hopper made his two sons, Ross and Keith, join forces.
Keith sold his beef properties out west and took over the dairy farm, and Ross bought a slice of land to construct a factory.
“We knew if we were going to make it through deregulation we’d needed to bottle the milk ourselves,” Mr Hopper said.
“I thought how hard could it be? You just bottle what’s in the vat.”
Two million dollars, two years, and a lot of sweat and tears later, Mr Hopper finally had a medium-capacity pasteurising and bottling facility.
Maleny Dairies’ first-ever farmer suppliers was Keith and his wife Sonya.
Within a year another Guernsey dairy farm was added.
Guernsey herds aren’t as rare as you’d assume in the Sunshine Coast hinterlands; the red and easy-going breed was the cow of choice on local farms until 15 years ago.
At the time deregulation had been around for a few years and was starting to get its claws in — processors were pressuring for quantity over quality and farmers begun crossing their Guernsey cows with Holstein-Friesians and converting.
Luckily, Maleny Dairies was already bottling and picking up suppliers before these farms got too many generations deep with Holstein-Friesian genetics.
“The Guernsey milk is a huge difference and it’s a hit with customers ... we like the butter fat to be at 4.5 per cent, and the protein to be up there,” Mr Hopper said.
This year Mr Hopper is paying 77 cents/litre to his farmers.
It’s a good price, and a big difference to other major processors in the Scenic Rim region, who are paying in the low 60 cents.
“We pay farmers properly because we know if we pay the right price they can invest in their farms. We’re here to look after them, not flog them,” Mr Hopper said.
Knowing your processor’s own brother and neighbours are on the books alongside you probably gives Mr Hopper’s farmers peace of mind as well.
The on-farm factory is capable of making full-cream and low-fat fresh milk, fruit yoghurts, custard and creams.
Milk leaves the farm the day it’s collected from the cows and gets bottled hours after arriving in the factory’s vats.
“Within a few hours it’s in a bottle and on a moving truck. We send out 12 semi-loads a week to our two distribution centres,” Mr Hopper said.
One centre is in Caboolture, the other on the Gold Coast.
“We have 50 workers, a mixture of full-time and casual. It isn’t hard to hire because we train people from the ground up,” Mr Hopper said.
“Robots handle all the crates, really a human shouldn’t touch the product. All the repetitive and menial work is done by machines.
“Most of our staff are drivers, maintenance staff, office and such.”
Maleny Dairies has one semi-milk tanker that drives every night between the farms.
“The furthest drive it has to do is to Toowoomba. They are a Guernsey farm, so we had to have them,” Mr Hopper said.
“We are starting to spread further, and who knows where this could end up, especially with the Rockhampton factory shutting down.”
One improvement Mr Hopper is proud of is the shelf life.
“We’ve got it to 18 days, and it's working very well for our regional customers, ‘cause we can beat all the other manufacturers for date.
“When someone comes in for their weekly shop, they go for the furthest date they can find. It makes sense.”
Making the most of Maleny's growing tourism dollar, Mr Hopper also runs a tourism side-gig on the family farm, operating tours and calf feedings.
It’s important educational work, considering most people have burning questions when it comes to farm practices.
“We are upfront with what we do and we do get the vegan warriors ringing up.
“They ask what we do with the bull calves and I tell them a tour is $14, they can see for themselves.
“It just wrecks them, they want to get in an argument with you but when you say ‘bring your camera, we’ll answer all your questions, it’s $14’ it blows the wind out of their sails. Of course, they don’t come along.”
In its heyday, Maleny had 300 dairy farms. In 2000 it had 33. Today it has eight.
All bar one of those eight farms are supplying Maleny Dairies (the odd one out supplies Maleny Cheese, a fellow local business).
“There would be no farmers left in Maleny if we hadn’t set the factory up,” Mr Hopper said.