Bold 18 Month Plan

• Home Delivered Milk in Glass Bottles Returning to Auckland
• Low Fat Milk and Cream in Glass being added to product lineup
• Joining with other Food Producers to introduce a range of Foods Free of Plastic either Home Delivered or available at Local Hot Spots
• Dairy Farms in other regions looking at building small regional Milk Processing Facilities

The Future
Today we are announcing a Bold 18 Month Plan,
Over the next 18 months we intend to
1. Extend coverage to include all of Greater Auckland
2. Introduce Home Deliveries and/or Hot Spots right across Urban Auckland
3. Extend Our product Range so that people have a choice of Low Fat Milk, and also Cream in Glass Bottles
4. Join Forces with other Northland Businesses so that deliveries will also include Meat, Fruit and Veges, Honey and Eggs, all without Single Use Plastic
5. Work with other Dairy Farmers that have approached us and establish Regional Hubs in The Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Taranaki where Milk is processed and distributed direct from the Farm

Background
Bella Vacca Jerseys is based on a small farm just west of Kawakawa in Northland, over the last 15 months they have built a network of stores from Houhora in the north to Grey Lynn in the south selling their Full Cream Jersey Milk in Returnable Glass Bottles. The milk is Pasteurised on the farm, chilled and bottled then transported by their own trucks to the retailers, empty bottles are bought back, washed and sterilised before going back into the system.

Gav & Jody are sharemilkers on a farm owned by the Goodhue Family for over a hundred years. Looking for a way to smooth out the up’s and down’s of the dairy industry they decided to look at producing their own Pasteurised Milk. A big challenge in a country dominated by the big players in the dairy industry. Two years of research, searching the world to find suitable equipment at a realistic price and coming up with a point of difference that would make people consider buying their milk finally came to fruition in 2018.

Starting with one shop in Waipapa, Kerikeri they now have a network from the Far North down to Central Auckland, things have come a long way since they started, the days when they would milk the cows, deliver milk then become a salesperson talking to other shops about stocking their milk are largely gone. Now Gav milks the cows while Jody concentrates on processing the milk and doing the office work while the 5 part and full time staff do deliveries and help with processing and bottling milk

The point of difference they made at the start was to go with Glass Bottles, and also leaving all the cream in the milk. These are two things that the customers really like, they’re getting a product that hasn’t had all the goodness sucked out of it and by using glass they’re helping the environment. Jody says that if they can get 50 return trips out of a glass bottle then the cost to the environment is much less than that of manufacturing 50 plastic bottles.

Having just ordered a bigger Pasteuriser (the second increase in capacity since the start) the time is right to push the expansion button. They hope to create business opportunities for people in Auckland who want to set up home deliveries while further afield other farms are looking to set up similar systems and they can help with that by building containerised pasteurisation plants that are simple to operate and pre-approved by MPI

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