Caboolture Butter Factory put district in spotlight

A CATCHY jingle and effective advertising campaign made Caboolture Fruit Yoghurt a household name in the 1980s, but the history of the place where it was produced goes back much further.

Staff at the Caboolture Butter Factory, ca. 1910. Image courtesy Moreton Bay Region Libraries.

A CATCHY jingle and effective advertising campaign made Caboolture Fruit Yoghurt a household name in the 1980s, but the history of the place where it was once produced goes back much further.

It all started with butter and a group of disgruntled dairy farmers in the Upper Caboolture district who wanted a better price for their milk.

They formed a co-operative in 1906, and built the Caboolture Butter Factory, which opened the following year.

It was built on a 1.1 ha site on the north bank of the Caboolture River, to the left of the railway line. Within two weeks of operation, 59 suppliers has come on board. Within five weeks, there were 114. Butter production to December 1907 was about 28,000 pounds (about 13 tonnes), by 1913 it was 1148 tonnes.

Production was booming and branch factories opened at Pomona in 1919 and Eumundi in 1920.

By 1936, it was decided the Caboolture factory needed an overhaul, as the original building was in a state of disrepair.

A modern brick building was constructed and by 1937, the co-op was investigating the possibility of supplying milk to Brisbane.

Caboolture Butter Factory, ca. 1930. Image courtesy Moreton Bay Region Libraries.

WWII resulted in a shortage of refrigerated shipping and a decline in butter exports, so cheese production was ramped up.

By the late 1960s Caboolture had moved towards bulk milk including flavoured milk, starting with chocolate and strawberry before adding coffee, lime, pineapple and vanilla to the factory’s range.

It experimented with cottage cheese in 1970, but transferred production to Woodford the following year as Caboolture Yoghurt started to take off and cottage cheese sales waned. Yoghurt production started, with trials of pot-set yoghurt in 1969.

Former board member John McAulay says Caboolture was the first to get into it, heating water in a bathtub and making yoghurt in cream cans during trials.

In 1980, the acidophilus range was launched, starting with natural before adding fruit flavours with honey as a sweetener.

A Brisbane marketing company created a jingle and television advertisement, and sales took off. “It put the Caboolture name on the map,” John says.

The factory also started producing custard in 1982, and supplied thickshake and sundae mix to Hungry Jack’s/Burger King. It also supplied pizza cheese to Pizza Hut.

Rationalisation of the dairy industry was happening by the mid 1980s and in 1987 the Caboolture and Queensland Farmers Associations merged to become the Queensco Food Co-operative Association.

Caboolture factory’s market and flavoured milk operations were moved to Booval in 1989. It then specialised in yoghurt, custard, creamed rice, special mixes and cream.

A cross-border merger with Australian ­ ­Co-operative Foods, also known as Dairyfarmers, in 1996 was the beginning of the end. The Caboolture factory closed in 1997 and the site is now home to Horizons College.

Source: Built on Butter, Brian Bauer (2010)