Jersey milk branded for success

The 21 year-old is a seventh generation dairy farmer who grew up drinking the white liquid and says his grandfather Des is a Jersey aficionado too.

“Grandpa is 74 and has drunk the milk all his life,” Mr Howe said.

In fact, the Howe’s 180-hectare dairy farm, which borders the Brucknell Creek at Naringal, has always run Jersey cows.

Five years ago, Paul and his father Neil decided to return to the family farm and join his uncle Gary on the property.

The decision has resulted in the Howe family boosting their herd to 300 head.

The family are among just six producers across south-west Victoria, who have been hand-picked to supply Warrnambool Cheese and Butter’s new Sungold Jersey Milk brand. It’s only just hit the shelves in retail outlets, but the Howe’s are excited at the potential of the product.

“We’ve always been in the premium bracket for our milk,” he said.

“I think it’s a great idea, because Jerseys naturally produce high quality milk. It makes sense.”

And while Jerseys might have played second fiddle to the black and white breeds over the past few decades, Sungold is helping put the small British breed back on the map.

WCB’s general manager retail dairy, Bill Slater said the decision behind marketing the Jersey milk was simply to produce clean and green milk, with no additives.

“We wanted to give consumers a choice; there are so many brands of milk out there with so many additives,” Mr Slater said.

“This is an all natural product.”

He says since Jerseys were first introduced to Australia in 1829, they’ve developed a reputation for turning out high fat, high protein milk.

There is a growing demand for this “real-tasting milk” he says and the south-west is the perfect place to produce it, because of its high concentration of purebred Jersey farms.

Back at the Howe’s farm, the family can certainly vouch for the milk’s quality.

Their cow herd generates four per cent protein and 5.2pc butter fat annually.

Although the breed is renowned for its high butter fat content, it does not have the capability to churn out the volumes that Holsteins and Friesians can.

“We’ve always been about quality, not quantity though,” Mr Howe says.

But milk quality is not the breed’s only trait.

“They’ve got great temperaments, they are easy to handle, they have little trouble calving and their feed conversion rate is excellent,” he said.

The herd is run over improved ryegrass and clover pastures, with the Howe’s running a self-sufficient farm system.

“We cut all our own fodder. We’ve just finished our silage and we finished with 550 rolls. It’s normally around the 300 mark,” he said.

And after a decade of drought and now floods throughout the region, the Howe’s cows are still in good nick.

“The herd is in excellent condition at the moment. We’ve just been through one of the wettest season in years, but Jerseys seem to handle extreme weather really well,” he said.