Woolnorth's massive dairy operation shrunk to half its size before sale

The owner of the Van Dairy Group has put the remaining properties of the renowned Woolnorth holding in north-west Tasmania on the market.

The sale includes Woolnorth's remaining 9500 hectares (23,475 acres) of land plus the option to buy its vast dairy herd and machinery.

The company once milked more than 11,000 cows across 17,000ha as one of Australia's biggest and oldest dairy operations producing more than 100 million litres of milk annually.

Chinese businessman Xianfeng Lu bought the massive Woolnorth aggregation in 2016 for $280 million.

Van Dairy, formerly Moon Lake Investments and Van Diemens' Land Company before that, attracted a lot of attention over its foreign ownership and farm operations.

Woolnorth had been owned by several overseas companies over the years notably from the UK and New Zealand.

But this sale has come as no surprise.

Last month investment group Prime Value Asset Management bought another of Van Dairy Group's Woolnorth dairy farms. The sale price was around $15 million.

Prime Dairy, the dairy arm of the Melbourne-based fund manager, bought a 700ha (1730 acre) dairy.

The group bought 11 dairy farms for $62.5 million from Mr Lu in 2021.

The group said it now owns enough high rainfall land (5000ha) in Tasmania and south-west Victoria to run 10,000 dairy cattle.

In 2021, Van Dairy also sold the 900ha Harcus Dairy, part of the Gums dairy and the Heifer Unit near Smithton, to Tasmanian-born businessman Tim Roberts-Thomson.

The Roberts-Thomson company - TRT Pastoral Group - also owns land in Victoria and on King Island and is believed to have taken about 6000ha of Woolnorth in total.

The Van Dairy Group struck trouble in 2021 when a government audit found most of the company's then 23 farms had failed to comply with effluent disposal codes.

In February, Fonterra cancelled a 25 million litre milk contract with Van Dairy citing "unresolvable commercial factors".

Van Dairy sent 700 cows to be slaughtered as a result.

This sale is being handled by Nutrien Harcourts Tasmania with no suggested price offered.

It is still a substantial offering 4200ha of dedicated dairy area, eight big rotary dairies, 10,300 megalitres of irrigation water, seven homes and extra worker's accommodation.

Those rotary dairies on offer have milked up to 8593 dairy cows.

Infrastructure includes 30 homes, 13-stand shearing shed, two large cattle yards, sheep yards plus numerous farm and livestock sheds.

According to agents, the buyer will have the first right to Van Dairy Group's livestock and machinery plus grazing leases on two wind farms.

Woolnorth is for sale by expressions of interest closing on June 12.

For more information contact Tony Maguire from Nutrien Harcourts on 0417 101392.