As General Manager On Farm Excellence - Animals, Caroline is responsible for leading a small, passionate team focussed on animal wellbeing and supporting the adoption of good farming practices.
Part of this includes updating Fonterra's animal wellbeing and biosecurity standards to meet government regulations - while some changes are influenced by customer and consumer expectations, the majority are based on improving the standard of care for animals.
"For us it all centres around animal wellbeing," says Caroline. "Our team works alongside farmers to ensure we are the best we can be when it comes to animal wellbeing and biosecurity."
A qualified veterinarian, Caroline admits she didn't decide on that career path until she was well into her teens.
"I wasn't one of those kids who wanted to be a vet since they were three years old. It actually wasn't until much later in my high school years that I decided that was what I was going to do."
Caroline grew up in the Waikato and studied at Massey University, before entering the workforce and spending around seven years working in veterinarian practices both in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
"Whilst overseas, I spent a bit of time working in small animal practices but I quickly realised that it just wasn't for me. I always came back to dairy and just knew I specifically wanted to be a dairy vet."
Caroline says she's always felt a strong connection to dairying - her father is a farm consultant and her mother comes from a dairy farming background so it is something that runs in her blood.
In 2018 the opportunity to step into a role as Senior Veterinary Manager at Fonterra was enough to lure Caroline back to New Zealand and see her join the Co-op.
"The opportunity at Fonterra came up and when I looked into it, the role really resonated with me," she says.
"Being able to make a genuine difference within the dairy industry is a huge driver for me - I'd love to help make a sustainable difference in dairying for years to come."
Caroline held the Senior Veterinary Manager role for around six months before being promoted into her current position as General Manager On Farm Excellence - Animals.
During her time with Fonterra Caroline has helped drive a number of initiatives and improvements, including the introduction of Animal Wellbeing Plans - something that over 80% of farmers now have in place.
These plans, which are developed with veterinarians and reviewed annually, cover the areas of nutrition, health, environment and behaviour, and are designed to ensure that animal wellbeing is actively planned for on farms.
With the Animal Wellbeing Plans becoming a term of supply from 1st June 2024, Caroline says a big focus for the team currently is ensuring farmers and vets are ready for this change.
"We want to set our farmers up for success by ensuring everyone has a Wellbeing Plan on the farm. Around 82% of farmers already do which is great, however it is important we support the rest of our farmers to get these in place. With the plans developed being alongside your veterinarians, we also have to ensure vets have the training and resourcing to be able to deliver these Wellbeing Plans and are comfortable doing so," she says. "This change is much more than just a tick-box exercise, it is about driving actual improvement in the care and wellbeing of our animals. So it is crucial that we support our vets and farmers to deliver the Wellbeing Plans in a meaningful way and that it also means something to our customers and consumers."
Other current areas of focus for the On Farm Excellence - Animals team include efficiency - specifically looking at what can be done from an animal's perspective to support greenhouse gas targets - and changes to the management of non-replacement calves, as well as continually driving improvements in overall animal wellbeing.
"Here in the New Zealand dairy industry we are really good at what we do and because of our systems we do have an inherit advantage in terms of the wellbeing for our cows and calves. Having said that, we need to keep that advantage and ensure we are always improving, while also continuously showcasing just how good we are," says Caroline, who admits the latter point isn't always simple in a global market.
"One of the challenges we have is our competitors overseas have housed year-round calving systems where animals are all in barns and have the same thing happen day after day after day. With our changing seasons we are completely different, so there is a step there that we've been trying to do which is educating people overseas about the differences, uniqueness and advantages with the New Zealand system."
"While it can be very challenging in a diverse global environment, it is really important that we show people just how good we are at what we do."