Fleurieu Milk Company enters Woolworths shelves as part of coronavirus bounce-back

Things were looking pretty dire for the Myponga group in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, but a new deal is helping them bounce back and thrive.

Fleurieu Milk Company general manager Nick Hutchinson. Picture MATT TURNER.

• SA’s reopening: More businesses get green light to resume trade
• How to get the most out of your Advertiser subscription

Fleurieu Milk Company has shrugged off major challenges posed by the coronavirus crisis, bouncing back with the help of a new supply deal with supermarket giant Woolworths.

The company’s full fat, skim and flavoured milk range was introduced in 34 Woolworths stores across the state this week, capping off a tumultuous few weeks for the Myponga group.

In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, sales plummeted by 30 per cent as restaurants, pubs and other food service providers closed their doors in line with shutdown rules.

But weeks later the company’s fortunes have turned around, and general manager Nick Hutchinson is forecasting even brighter days ahead.

“We were challenged fairly significantly – 50 per cent of our sales were to the food service industry, so cafes, restaurants and pubs, and a lot of those places obviously closed down,” he said.

“We had excess milk at the farm level and we had a group of employees – we have 55 staff now – that we didn’t have a lot of work for.

“We were approached by Woolworths, and we had been a few times before, but at this point in time it was a great way for us offset some of those earlier losses.”

Fleurieu Milk Company is owned by three dairy farming families in Myponga, sourcing milk from five farms in the region.

Mr Hutchinson expects that number to rise to up to eight suppliers by next year as demand for the company’s milk products rises.

“Things have rebounded a lot quicker than we expected,” he said.

“We’re going to come out of the coronavirus in a better place to where we were before and that’s due to the Woolworths contract, but also the increase in consumer awareness over the past two months – there’s a real push now to buy local.

“A differentiator for us has been that we’re locally owned rather than being part of a large multinational.

“To be in a position where we are now looking at opportunities to expand our business, bring more local farmers on board and create jobs, is a long way from the uncertainty we faced only two months ago.”

Fleurieu Milk Company recently completed a $1.2 million upgrade of its processing plant, increasing production speed from around 2000 litres to 4000 litres per hour.

A further $1.5 million is being invested in an expansion of the facility’s cool rooms.

The Woolworths contract follows a recent deal with X Convenience, which has seen Fleurieu Milk products sold in all South Australian stores since March.

Originally published as Fleurieu Milk Company enters Woolworths shelves as part of coronavirus bounce-back