Shoppers flock to buy $5 ‘raw’ milk as ‘less messed with’ trend boosts battling dairy industry

THE latest trend could see the end of $1 milk as shoppers seeking a natural alternative flock to buy ‘raw’ milk at the princely sun of $5 for 750ml bottle.

Lulu Joye drinking a glass of Made by Cow milk, owned by her dad Saxon. Picture: Riohan Kelly

‘RAW’ milk is set to be the next hit with hipster shoppers who are willing pay $5 for a 750ml bottle of “cold pressed” milk.

“There was a massive demand for raw milk that was almost entirely unmet,” said Tristan Harris of Harris Farm which is one of two Sydney stockists of Made By Cow “raw” milk which has undergone high pressure processing (HPP).

The process has been approved by the NSW Food Authority as an alternative to heat pasteurisation, to remove harmful bacteria.

The NSW Department of Primary Industry says the Food Standards Code requires milk to be pasteurised — either by heat or by other methods that achieve an equivalent food safety outcome.

The high pressure processing pasteurises the milk, but without using heat — it is not raw milk.

“The NSW Food Authority has worked closely with the company using this form of pasteurisation to ensure the process they are using will lead to a product being sold to consumers which is safe, pasteurised and most certainly not raw,” a statement says.

“I regularly spoke to farmers who told me they had people turning up at the dairy begging them to sell raw milk,” Harris said.

“Your typical supermarket milk gets heat pasteurised, disaggregated and reconstituted as a pretty ordinary version of itself. Sure it was consistent and (at the expense of farmers) cheap — but real milk is delicious. Why stuff it up?”

Saxon Joye, who is behind Made by Cow sourced from 300 cows on the NSW south coast, said his brand was the first in the world to use the process and while a small majority are hippie or hipster consumers, the majority are those who want an “authentic taste” to their milk.

“After working on it for a few years and having a bit of an idea that it would be well accepted, we have been pretty-well bowled over by the response,” he said.

Saxon Joye, founder of Made By Cow, Australia’s first legal ‘raw’ milk. Picture: Richard Dobson

“We didn’t know how deep a vein we would hit and that’s the thing, we knew sitting here in Sydney, we would sell it in Bondi Beach but am I going to have something to sell when we head over the Blue Mountains. That’s where we’ve gone, ‘Wow, there are a lot of people interested in this less messed with, less processed range’.”

In 2014, a Victorian toddler died and seven other children became seriously ill after drinking

raw milk which is often sold at farmers markets and branded as “beauty milk”. It is meant for bathing but often consumed by those who disapprove of the pasteurisation process.

“Here’s a product that has actually killed people in Australia and overseas and yet people were prepared to risk it anyway and pay outrageous money for raw milk dressed up as a beauty product,” Harris said. “So we knew people would love to get their hands on a raw milk that was safe to drink.”

But the raw claim is debatable, said raw cheese producer Nick Haddow of Bruny Island Cheese south of Hobart.

Haddow, who is about to release a book on cheese called Milk. Made, said Made by Cow milk is still processed, albeit not with conventional pasteurisation.

Raw milk is popular in Europe, and also has restricted sales in the US, with Sugar House Dairy in New York State selling raw milk from its herd of Swiss Brown cows.

Haddow currently has his unpasteurised milk supplied by Tassie farmers to make his C2 raw milk cheese and is planning his own raw milk dairy, from Swiss Browns or Salers, adding that raw milk sales will follow at some stage.

“Assuming that all raw milk is pathogenic and causes diseases is completely false. That raw milk can be a safe and wholesome food is a true fact,” he said.

Made by Cow will be at Citi Good Food & Wine Show, Sydney Olympic Park, August 5-7.

Originally published as Shoppers flock to buy $5 ‘raw’ milk as ‘less messed with’ trend boosts battling dairy industry