CELEBRATIONS are on hold until any risk of COVID-19 has gone, but Bannister Downs Dairy, Northcliffe, last week chalked up 15 years of processing and packaging its own milks and cream.
Having discovered after deregulation of the dairy industry in 2000 there was no profitable future for them simply supplying raw milk for someone else to process, third-generation Northcliffe dairy farmer Mat Daubney and wife Sue decided to process and direct market their own.
In August 2005 Bannister Downs produced, processed with low-temperature batch pasteurisation and packaged in distinctive chalk-based biodegradable pouches they still use, its first 300 litres of milk with the help of five enthusiastic casual workers.
Fifteen years on, now as WA's fourth biggest volume milk processor, Bannister Downs is processing and packaging about 100,000 litres of milk a week with a total full-time and part-time staff of about 65 people - three of them from the original five.
There are now two dairy herds.
The original herd numbering about 1400 cows, established by Mat when he and Sue took over the family farm in 1995, is run on a 1000 hectare traditional pasture base and milked in a 90-stand manual rotary dairy.
It is supplemented by a herd of between 300 and 500 cows assembled specifically for The Creamery, which opened last year.
Known within the business as the 'shiny red shed', the architectural award-winning The Creamery built near to the original farm property has a robotic rotary milking platform - the first in WA - and its own 350ha pasture base set up for voluntary automated milking.
In 2012 Bannister Downs dairy began buying in raw milk from neighbours Brian and Julie Armstrong who uphold the same ethical dairy principles as the Daubneys.
These days, as well as processing and packaging its own milk into a range of 10 products, including the original Farm Fresh Milk, a low-fat milk, flavoured milks and cream, Bannister Downs also sells raw milk to Brownes Dairy.
In the first year of processing and marketing its own milk, Bannister Downs won the Champion Milk prize at the 2005 IGA Perth Royal Show.
It has since gone on to collect multiple national and State quality awards including, this year, a total of 20 gold and silver awards as well as Champion Cream and Champion Milk at the WA Dairy Industry Association of Australia awards.
Originally the Bannister Downs business was built on supplying Perth coffee shops and cafes with a premium milk which frothed better than other milks.
As well as being used in coffee shops, cafes and restaurants, its products are now found in Coles supermarkets across WA and many IGA stores and it was building a successful export business to Singapore with an online home delivery company there until the COVID-19 pandemic virtually put that on hold.
Air freight costs to get Bannister Downs milk to Singapore have more than trebled, cargo space on limited flights has dried up and despite offers of help from the State government, exporting remains a very difficult proposition.
COVID-19 has also forced Bannister Downs to close The Creamery to the public as an innovative tourist attraction - visitors for a short while had been able to watch cows coming in to be milked in the robotic dairy.
The Creamery with its viewing area and The Kitchen Table cafe are likely to remain closed to the public until next year.
Undeterred, the Daubneys have refocused on building Bannister Down's WA distribution.
In June they announced Bannister Downs milk was being supplied to Pilbara mine sites - Atlas Iron's Mount Dove and Mount Webber sites and Roy Hill associated with their Bannister Downs partner Gina Reinhart.
They are also busy on the farm - they try to maintain both herds on grass all year round so that means making the most of converting current rains into pasture growth.
Last week, in true Bannister Downs fashion, they were trialling something different, spreading fertiliser from a helicopter.
"Some of our paddocks are that wet at the moment you couldn't get a vehicle onto them to spread fertiliser without risking getting bogged or at the very least tearing up the paddock," Ms Daubney said.
"With the equipment they have in the helicopters these days they can control exactly how much is delivered anywhere in the paddock according to the soil tests plan.
"But they can only do it on a calm day."
Ms Daubney said the 15th anniversary of processing, packaging and marketing their own milk had been a time for some reflection.
"There's been a lot of looking back recently at our major milestones - winning quality awards, gaining an export licence, taking on a farmer supplier - but without a doubt there is one milestone that stands out above all others," she said.
"That is forming a relationship with Mrs Rinehart (Bannister Downs entered a partnership arrangement with Hancock Agriculture in December 2014).
"That relationship has enabled us to progress our dream of The Creamery and make it a reality.
"The rewards are a personal sense of achievement that make you feel pretty good when you get something right and it seems to provide a confidence boost for the future for the whole industry.
"It has a sort of ripple effect that we're doing something positive.
"We'll probably celebrate at some point, but at the moment we're just very, very busy."
