Last night Bannister Downs Dairy took to the stage to receive a multitude of awards at the 2024 Dairy Industry Association of Australia Annual Product Awards held at the Plaza Ballroom in Melbourne. The first win was for Bannister Downs Chocolatte, announced as the Champion Chocolate Flavoured Milk, and then shortly after the awarded the trophy for the Highest Scoring Flavoured Milk, from all varieties of flavoured milks in Australia.
Not to be left out, the highly sought after Bannister Downs Double Cream was announced the Champion Cream in Australia for 2024 and was further honoured to win the title of the Most Outstanding Show Exhibit of a Medium to Large Scale Producer which is a huge applause for all of the effort from every single team member at Bannister Downs and the care that they take from the early mornings bringing in the cows and loading up the delivery trucks and long days processing and filling - including hand filling those precious jars - results like this make every minute very worthwhile!
It was a huge honour to also receive the award for the Most Innovative Product in Show (Judges Choice) for the recently launched 2L rPET bottle, being the only milk in Australia available in a 2 Litre bottle, made entirely from recycled plastics. In 2024 where there is such a focus on reducing waste and pollution, it is a great achievement to be able to offer a packaging option that is made from re-used plastics. We credit Visy Plastics with the vision and initiative to develop this process and material, and while it may cost a little more to produce, at Bannister Downs we feel that it’s an easy choice to make!
With over 1100 product entries and companies represented from all over Australia, it was an absolutely huge achievement for our dedicated team to dominate in the Flavoured Milk and Cream Champion categories and is a testament to everything we do at Bannister Downs to offer the very best tasting and nutritious milk. This encompasses all the decisions we make from how we care for our cows, our world class processing facility in Northcliffe, through to our sustainable packaging. It all makes a difference, and we’re very proud to be recognised for producing premium quality milk, cream and flavoured milk,” Sue Daubney said. Each week we make 11 different products, and every single product was awarded with a gold or silver medal and for our Chocolatte and Double Cream to be the Champions in Australia, we simply can’t ask for much more than that!
‘The current season and operating conditions have been unprecedentedly challenging and it is wonderful to have some good news to share, both for our team and for WA Agriculture in general, as we have all been faced with so many hurdles in trying operate our businesses. Winning these Australian Champion Titles puts a little spring in everyone’s step and we are very grateful to the competition organisers, judges and stewards who contribute so many hours (voluntarily) to provide this opportunity for our industry to showcase its best of the best’ Suzanne Daubney (Managing Director) said.
BANNISTER DOWNS DAIRY also recognises the team at Tetrapak as major sponsors and The Product Makers, BVAQ, FOSS, DSM-Firmenish and Novonesis as category sponsors, and for everything they do to promote and support our Dairy Industry in Australia.
