Farm Dairy Assessment

Download the checklist for your next assessment
Farm Dairy Assessment Checklist

Why is the Farm Dairy Assessment important?

We need to give customers, consumers and government assurances about the quality of milk we produce and the integrity of the system processing the milk.

The Farm Dairy Assessment is how your Co-op confirms and proves that you produce world class milk and milk products.

To prepare, check out the following:

Farm dairy assessment

Find out what's covered in your assessment

Dive into the detail with a snapshot of what you will be assessed on and find out what to expect if any risks have been identified. 

Complete your Food Safety Practices & Procedures

You can prepare for your assessment by completing your on-farm practices and procedures for your Food Safety Practices & Procedures.

Farm dairy assessment checklist

Download the checklist and reach out to us early for clarity

The checklist ensures you can tick all the boxes ahead of your assessment. We encourage you to have a read through and reach out to you Farmer Support Team on 0800 65 65 68 if you have any questions.

Prepare with the online checklist

Track your assessment readiness with the online checklist – tick tasks off as they’re ready for assessment and keep track of information you’ve already shared.

Try the checklist

Get to know the online checklist

Check out these short videos for help to use the online checklist.

What is the checklist?

Get familiar with the online checklist and learn where to find key information about your upcoming farm dairy assessment.

How to use the checklist

Discover how to tick tasks off the list, and how integrations can feed in your information – ready for your assessor to review.  

How to upload files

Walk through how to upload a file to your checklist – ready for your assessor to review, so you can save time on the day. 

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

All you need to know about the online checklist

  • The online checklist is a one-stop shop to help you prepare for your Farm Dairy Assessment.
  • It’s personalised to your farm, so you can see what information we already have for you all in one place, and you can tick tasks off as you go.
  • If you upload documents to the checklist 7 days in advance of a visit, your assessor will check them before they see you on-farm, saving you time on the day.
  • You can also see the time, date and name of your assessor (if your assessment has been scheduled).
  • The online checklist is just for you, to help you prepare – it doesn’t replace other records you need to submit later in the year, and your assessor can’t see it (only files you upload can be seen by your assessor).
  • For the 2024/2025 season, the checklist is available to farm owners, sharemilkers and contract milkers paid by Fonterra.
  • In the short-term, a small number of farmers will be onboarded to the checklist – this is just to iron out any issues, before all farmers have access.
  • We’re planning to extend access to other farmer groups with a Farm Source log-in next season. 
  • The checklist is for farmers who have an assessment coming up – if QCONZ has scheduled your assessment, your checklist will display the date and time of your assessment, as well as your assessor’s name.
  • If your assessment date and time is blank, this is because QCONZ has yet to schedule your assessment. If you’re the Primary Business Contact or Primary On Farm Contact, you’ll receive an email before your assessment to let you know it’s scheduled.
  • If you’ve already had your assessment this year, your assessment will be marked as complete. Next season, the checklist will refresh with new details once your next assessment is scheduled – we’ll let you know when it’s ready for you.
  • If you’ve already had your assessment this year, your assessment will be marked as complete.
  • Next season, the checklist will refresh with new details once your next assessment is scheduled – we’ll let you know when it’s ready for you. 
  • The checklist is your tool to help you prepare for the assessment – it doesn’t replace your Farm Dairy Assessment, and your assessor can’t see it (only files you upload can be seen by your assessor).
  • When you tick an item off the list, it just means it’s ready to be assessed. 
  • If you’ve had excellent performance during previous assessments, or if you’ve connected your data, you might qualify for a faster assessment. Read more about this here. 
  • On the overview page of the checklist (bottom left), you’ll see a section outlining if you’ve qualified for faster assessment in any areas.
  • You can also make your assessment faster by loading documents into the checklist at least 7 days ahead of your assessment – your assessor can then check it before they visit you on farm.
  • On the overview page of the checklist (bottom), you’ll see a section that lists all the data integrations we have for you.
  • You’ll also see any integrations listed against each relevant task on the checklist. 
  • At the moment, we can only accept PDF files up to 25MB each in size.  We’ll make more file types available in the future.
  • If you aren’t able to convert a document to a PDF format, just take a photo of the file in the Dairy Diary app using the photo evidence feature (under Receipts and Dockets). Any information stored in the app will flow through to your checklist as a PDF. You can find more information on this feature here.

Reach out to your local Farmer Support & Relationship Advisor, you can find their contact details in your My Co-op App or by calling 0800 65 65 68.  

We’re working to make things easier and simpler when it comes to farm records and reporting. You can find out more about this here.