Vertically integrated Little Big Dairy at Dubbo goes for growth
An innovative dairy farm business has gone from zero to hero with an on-farm factory processing more than 3.5 million litres of branded milk annually.
THE Chesworths are one of those farming families the dairy industry would love to bottle.
In the space of just seven years, the family’s vertically integrated The Little Big Dairy Co, near Dubbo in centralwest NSW, has gone from zero to hero with its 1000-head herd and on-farm factory now producing more than 3.5 million litres of branded milk annually, sold to a loyal and growing customer base across NSW.
In a show of the business’ strength – despite the devastating effects of coronavirus on the economy, Little Big grew a whopping 66 per cent during the past 12 months. It now employs 20 staff, including 10 full-time workers, and has collected a swag of accolades for its branded fresh and flavoured milk and cream.
Not ones to rest on their laurels, the Chesworths has plans in place to hit the magical five million-litre mark while keeping the door open to potential educational and agritourism opportunities.
Steve and Erika Chesworth founded Little Big on the banks of the Macquarie River between Dubbo and Narromine in September 2013 as a way of getting the next generation involved in the family farming business and sustaining it for the future.
The business is a truly family affair. Steve and Erica’s daughter Emma and son-in-law Jim manage the factory and work on the direction of the business while son Duncan — a boilermaker by trade — helps Steve out on the farm, managing milk production and in charge of stock. Duncan’s wife, Danielle, when not busy assisting on the farm, in the factory or at the markets, can be found rearing calves and taking care of breeding paperwork.
Erika likes to think of herself as semi-retired nowadays but, for years “used to run between the dairy, the calves and the office”.
She admits Little Big has been a wild ride for the family, which remains passionate about the dairy industry despite its highly publicised challenges. “It’s quite a privilege really,” she said.
GOOD MOOVE
THE Chesworths have a black-and-white approach to dairy farming. Longtime Holstein breeders — their Tomargo Recluse Holstein stud exhibited the breed’s grand champion cow at last year’s Sydney Royal Easter Show — they have been farming their 800ha property west of Dubbo since 2004, when they relocated from the Hunter Valley.
The Macquarie Valley is not a renowned dairy area with just one other dairy in the Dubbo region and the nearest cluster two hours’ drive away in the Lachlan Valley around Gooloogong and Forbes.
Despite this, Erika said it was an ideal area for dairying with “metres of topsoil and excellent underground water and a friendly water policy”. Little Big Dairy has a 2000-megalitre underground water licence to use on its 345ha of irrigation under 12 centre pivots. The Chesworths can also buy more underground water or Macquarie River water if needed and available.
In an effort to maximise production and milk quality, the Chesworths don’t cut corners. The herd calves year round, except Christmas and January, with about 35 per cent of cows calving during a tight period in autumn. Genetics are mostly from US and Canadian sires. Animal welfare is paramount with a comprehensive on-farm vaccination program in place.
Antibiotics are only used when necessary to treat ailments such as pneumonia, mastitis or injury. Like most herds, the Chesworths do a hard cull with the two-year-olds.
Quality feed — and plenty of it — is paramount to the business. Erika said with cows requiring 20kg of dry matter a day “just for maintenance” they targeted consumption rates of 25-26kg a day. Cows graze oats, rye grass and clover pasture during winter and summer forages during summer. Surplus pasture is cut for silage to feed to the herd during the summer months while fodder crops such as corn are grown year round.
In an effort to minimise their environment footprint, the Chesworths recycle effluent water as irrigation and spread manure across pastures to supplement biochemical fertilisation.
THREE TIMES A CHARM
THE Chesworths’ early lactation and heifer herds are milked three times a day with the late-lactation herd on a 12-hour split milking program. The dairy is a nine-year-old 28-a-side double-up rapid exit herringbone with feeders, cup remover and a California-style basement.
Under the supervision of long-time consultant Neil Moss, cows are fed a high-energy diet in the bail that includes grain, hay and additives such as canola meal sourced from Manildra and mill run from a flour mill in Dubbo. Cows wear transponders that are linked to milk meters and computers, which record milk production, timing of milking and location in the dairy.
The cows achieve a “comfortable 10,500-litre lactation” with the farm producing about 11.5-12 million litres of milk a year. About 500,000-700,000 litres goes into a calf-rearing program and last year 7.5 million litres was sold to Parmalat and 3.5 million litres went into The Little Big Dairy Co products.
The Little Big Dairy range includes full-cream, less-cream, no-cream and non-homengenised milk, double and pouring cream and coffee, chocolate and honey malt and vanilla flavours. Lactose-free milk, butter and yoghurt are something they would like to produce in the future.
Erika said the chocolate and coffee flavoured varieties were the only ones in Australia accredited by Fairtrade, which advocates for better working conditions and improved terms of trade for farmers and workers in developing countries.
“We only use Fairtrade products for ourselves as a family so when it came to making chocolate or coffee-flavoured milks (we adapted it),” she said.
“We pay a fair price for the coffee and the chocolate, we pay a fair price for our employees, we pay a fair price to the guys that sell us their products — this whole mentality in Australia about paying the least for everything is already coming home.
“Sustainability is not about tree planting – which is important – it’s much more than that. As Australians we have an obligation to stop buying the cheapest and start thinking about the consequences of our spending.”
SHOP SHAPE
LITTLE Big Dairy supplies about 680 customers across western NSW, Sydney, Newcastle and the Hunter Region, Coffs Harbour, Canberra and, more recently, Port Macquarie.
Major retail outlets include David Jones, local Woolworths and Coles stores and independent IGA and Harris Farm supermarkets. Thirty per cent of their business comes from cafes and Erika said the business had plans in place to increase this customer base — in particularly “those trendy hipster cafes that want our milk because it matches their coffee-bean story” — prior to coronavirus restrictions coming into effect.
“For the past 18 months we have been doing social media marketing targeting cafes where we offer a day’s worth of free milk to get people to try it,” Erika said. “We certainly convert 80 per cent of those clients. I think in the drought there was a lot of variance in the quality of (commodity) milk because of what was happening back on farm, whereas we don’t compromise on farm — it is what stands us apart.”
Looking forward, Erika said the goal was to hit five million litres under the Little Big Dairy brand before a consolidation “because when you’re growing all the time it is exhausting emotionally and physically but you’ve got to realise the value of the business and do a dividend distribution instead of re-investing”.
Coronavirus has also prompted the family to launch a home-delivery service, which they will continue in a post-pandemic world. In the short-term, they will continue to focus on quality in both the paddock and on the plate.
The Chesworths followed up last year’s Sydney Royal champion Holstein title with champion cream this year. The dairy has won numerous Australian Grand Dairy and Australian Food Awards over the years.
In a show of the family’s passion for the industry, there are plans to launch a colouring-in book in an effort to educate consumers about the truths of farming.
“There is an opportunity to educate our community at large about the value of dairying,” Erika said. “There are too many myths out there.”
MORE
Marmon Hill tops the chops
Few know the secret to successfully breeding prized first-cross ewes better than South Australia’s Ian Farley. And here he shares what he knows and how he got there.
Fruits of family labour pay off
The bank was set to foreclose when Helen Aggeletos took over her family’s citrus business in South Australia’s Riverland. Read how she turned it all around.