Bethune Lane Dairy wins The Weekly Times Coles 2020 Innovative Farmer of the Year
A Lake Boga dairy family who launched their own brand have been honoured for their innovation. Discover why they deserve the accolade.
WINNER: PAUL AND SALLY BETHUNE
Bethune Lane Dairy
Lake Boga, VIC
LAKE Boga dairy farmers Paul and Sally Bethune have decades of experience under their belts, but still innovate as nimbly as a start-up.
The couple have spent the past 26 years finetuning their 900-head milking herd to produce some of the creamiest milk in the business, while maximising water efficiency and keeping costs under tight control. Impressive in itself for an irrigated dairy operation in low-rainfall northwest Victoria.
In the past two years, they have added another string to their bow by establishing their own brand – Bethune Lane Dairy – to showcase their traditional tasting, full-cream milk.
“What keeps us interested is new projects,” Sally says. “That’s the fun part of the business we enjoy.”
Paul adds: “We could keep expanding the farm, but I’ve milked cows for 20 years. I didn’t want to get to the point of retiring and wish I’d tried value-adding.”
While most of their 120,000-litre weekly milk production goes to Freedom Foods, they are investing in Bethune Lane Dairy because they believe in the importance of diversifying, want to offer their five young sons exciting future prospects and hope to eventually be a significant employer in their community.
“Based on what we have seen in the past 12 months as a manufacturer, we think we can pull it off,” Paul says.
Launched in late 2019, the boutique business produces milk, yoghurt and chocolate milk, selling through farmers’ markets and retailers from Mildura to Kerang.
The brand’s quick success is testament to the quality of their high-butterfat dairy, produced by a mix of Jersey, Friesian and Aussie Red cows.
“This is single origin, whole milk, straight from the cow,” Sally says. “Even retired dairy farmers tell us it tastes like milk from the vat.”
Their milk travels less than 20m from the dairy to their on-farm processing centre, where it is pasteurised slowly, heated to a low 65C, to preserve flavour.
This attention to detail reflects the couple’s consistent focus on quality in everything they do.
Cheese was part of their initial range, but they put production on hold last year so they could ramp up chocolate milk in glass bottles, which has gone “gangbusters” according to Paul.
In the paddock, they strive to balance production with pasture availability, maintain low stocking rates, only irrigate in winter and spring, and cut enough hay and silage for two years of feed.
A Nuffield Scholar, Paul says his philosophy has always been to “keep it low cost, with simple systems that were easy to manage”.
For their determination to remain true to this mantra, while innovating to future-proof the business, Bethune Lane Dairy is a worthy winner of The Weekly Times Coles 2020 Farm Magazine Innovative Farmer of the Year.
READ MORE ABOUT BETHUNE LANE DAIRY
FINALIST: PHILLIPA AND SKEET LAWSON
The Pinnaroo Farmer
Pinnaroo, SA
WHEN it comes to maximising the value of their red lentil crop, up-and-coming pulse growers Phillipa and Skeet Lawson make a crack team.
The pair have spent the past six years running a 1600-hectare grain and lentil operation in South Australia’s Mallee, where they are slowly taking the reins from Phillipa’s father, John Angel.
They strive to maximise production and soil health while reducing chemical use, under John’s guidance.
While they may still have much to learn, the couple have wasted no time making positive additions to the business, last year launching a paddock-to-plate brand to sell their pulses directly to consumers as high-protein, gluten-free flour.
The venture was inspired, in part, by their frustration about what happens to lentils that don’t make export grade.
“Lentils are considered a high-value commodity. But if they have too many cracks or chips, they are demoted straight back to stock feed,” says Phillipa, who is the fourth generation of her family to farm the property at Pinnaroo. “It all comes back to the cosmetic appearance and cracked lentils don’t look appealing enough in the packet.”
Determined to command a fair price for the crop, Phillipa found inspiration at her dinner table. To sneak more protein into daughter Annabelle’s diet, she and Skeet started milling lentils into flour. Commercialising the flour seemed the logical next step, and a way to tap into demand for plant-based proteins.
Through an accelerator program, she completed customer research and finetuned a business and marketing plan.
The family’s brand, The Pinnaroo Farmer, launched in July last year and demand has soared, with more than 500kg of flour selling in the first six months. Households, retailers and the local Pinnaroo bakery are all regular customers and the couple is currently negotiating to supply shops nationwide.
Phillipa and Skeet also hope to scale up enough to benefit other growers.
“One of our big visions is, even though we have started The Pinnaroo Farmer … we don’t want to just use our lentils, we want to use our district’s lentils,” Phillipa says.
Trade shows and exciting product development are on the cards for Phillipa this year, while Skeet continues to make improvements in the paddock, ensuring The Pinnaroo Farmer is definitely on the rise.
READ MORE ABOUT THE PINNAROO FARMER
FINALIST: BECKY DART
Big Heart Bamboo
Belli Park, QLD
SHOOTING for the top is a trait that runs in Becky Dart’s family, and the young bamboo grower is certainly aiming high in her ambitions.
The 34-year-old farmer from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast believes edible bamboo has huge market potential in Australia, and has made it her personal mission to build demand.
She is following the trailblazing footsteps of her father, Durnford Dart, who first planted species of the giant grass on his Belli Park land in 1989. Durnford helped create Australia’s commercial bamboo sector, touting the crop as a sustainable construction material.
Becky is now reintroducing bamboo to Australian chefs and diners, as a premium, Australian-grown vegetable.
On her own eight-hectare slice of the Dart family’s 40-hectare farm in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, Becky manages two main varieties, harvesting up to eight tonnes of shoots a year.
In addition to being a dab horticultural hand, she is also more than proficient in the kitchen – making a range of delicious, award-winning value-added bamboo preserves and chutneys herself.
Selling under her Big Heart Bamboo brand, Becky’s fresh and pickled bamboo shoots and hearts have wowed chefs, and her preserves – available in flavours such as chilli and pina colada – are winning over foodies.
Becky has also picked up the education baton from her father, teaching people about the benefits, potential markets and sustainable credentials of the crop.
“A lot of people think bamboo is an invasive species that can be annoying to get rid of and out-competes natives,” she says. “But I’m a mad, passionate native flora advocate with a bachelor of wildlife science and I absolutely see the benefits of bamboo.
“If done correctly it can help arrest climate change by sequestering carbon, provides habitat for wildlife, has many human health benefits for nutrition, and globally it can help stop deforestation, supplying timber needs.”
Becky’s next ambitions are to expand production and ramp up agritourism on the Belli Park farm. With her passion and expertise driving the business, no order is too tall for Big Heart Bamboo.
READ MORE ABOUT BIG HEART BAMBOO
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