THE CO-OPERATIVE DIFFERENCE FRAMEWORK

Milk Quality & Excellence

This focus area is about maintaining our world-class standards for milk to help us maximise value for you.

Our highly nutritious milk made with uncompromising food safety and world class quality underpins our global reputation.

We take care of every drop of milk through every aspect of our grass-to-glass supply chain.​ Our farmers’ agile approach and adoption of desirable on-farm practices enable us to produce products that are innovative, high-quality and beyond our customers’ expectations.

Our milk is some of the finest in the world, and that’s because of our exacting standards, rigorous testing and robust auditing process. That’s how we meet the needs of our regulators, our markets, and most importantly, our customers.

The Co-operative Difference - Milk Quality & Excellence

2:41 mins

For farms that meet Te Pūtake, the next steps are Te Puku and then Te Tihi. These are all about the quality of the milk that you provide to the Co-op.

To achieve Te Puku, you’ll need to achieve Milk Quality Excellence on at least 30 days during the season. These can be any 30 days; they don’t need to be consecutive. You’ll then receive an additional 3 cents for every kgMS supplied during the season that meets the Excellence standard. This payment is in addition to the base price and the Te Pūtake component of the Co-operative Difference payment.

Te Tihi is about celebrating those in the Co-operative who consistently deliver the highest quality milk. To achieve Te Tihi, a minimum of 90% of the days that you supply milk during the season must be at the Excellence standard. There is no additional payment for Te Tihi, it is simply about recognising those at the top of their game.

Download the factsheet

Why is this important?

 
  • We pride ourselves on producing the highest quality milk and it is a core part of the Co-op’s international reputation.
  • Higher quality milk on-farm can enable manufacturing efficiencies and better quality products (e.g. improved shelf-life, yields, functionality and flavour).
  • The feeds cows eat can impact milk by changing flavours or impacting product functionality, and in some cases, it restricts the types of products that we can manufacture.

 
  • Our customers and consumers expect the highest levels of food safety and quality when they buy our products. That’s one of the reasons why we see a premium paid for New Zealand-sourced product sold through the Global Dairy Trade platform.
  • There is a growing demand from consumers for specialty milks (e.g. organic milk is projected to grow by 10% per year compared to conventional milk growing by 1%), and the Co-op needs to be able to respond to these in order to support our value-add strategy.
  • Feed inputs can affect the value that we can obtain for our products (e.g. grass-fed dairy is a strong and growing consumer trend for its perceived nutritional and health attributes). More than two-in-three consumers prefer grass-fed dairy and more than one-in-three consumers are willing to pay 25% more for sustainable dairy claims like grass-fed.

 
  • Our access to overseas markets is heavily controlled. We must demonstrate that we are meeting Overseas Market Access Requirements for each country we export to, and this is closely monitored by MPI.
  • The types of products that our customers are requiring may be restricted by change in flavours or product functionality that results from different feeds fed on farm.
  • There is increasing focus from customers regarding the sourcing of feeds that achieve a required standard. Some of our customers, such as Barry Callebaut & Bel, have committed to only using ingredients grown using certified sustainable feeds, while others such as Unilever, Nestlé and Mars have indicated that sustainably-sourced feed is very important to them.
  • Our customers need to be able to trace products back through the supply chain in order to assure food safety, quality and authenticity of New Zealand provenance.
  • Our customers are paying a premium for specific milk product characteristics, including 25% for organic and 5-20% for non-GMO and grass-fed milk.
  • We anticipate increasing customer demand for specific milk product characteristics (eg. Barry Callebaut have a target of 100% certified sustainably sourced feed (PKE and soy)), and recent consumer research has shown ‘naturalness’ (eg. grass-fed and no antibiotic use) is becoming increasingly important.

USEFUL TOOLS

Here are a few of our favourite useful resources from DairyNZ to help. 

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MilkSmart app

Learn how small changes at milking time can dramatically improve efficiency, milk quality, and profitability with the DairyNZ MilkSmart app.

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Healthy Udder Service

Improve udder health in your herd and reduce mastitis by working with a veterinarian to identify areas for improvement, create policies and procedures, and provide ongoing support.