It’s early days, but WA’s Bannister Downs hopes it may soon provide more of its farm-fresh milk on tap straight to consumers.

Seven weeks ago, the award-winning, innovative dairy company, in the State’s South West, started supplying full-fat and low-fat milk in new 18-litre, reusable, recyclable, Australian-made kegs to two gourmet supermarkets in Perth.

Fourteen other family-run dairy businesses already subscribe to the milk on tap keg service, managed by Tasmanian-based start up The Udder Way in all Australian States except Queensland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

The Udder Way has about 1600-1800 end customers in Australia.

Bannister Downs started last week supplying milk on tap to the Roy Hill mine site, in the Pilbara, and a further two Pilbara mine sites will join in October.

The next retail location in WA will likely be the ever-popular Bunbury Farmer’s Market, and from there, its milk on tap should start popping up in other smaller supermarkets and gourmet groceries.

The WA supermarket dispensing set-up enables customers to buy reuseable, 750-millilitre glass bottles, supplied by Bannister Downs, which consumers fill and then refill themselves instore.

Bannister Downs managing director Sue Daubney said the team had been inspired to pursue the new environmentally-friendly service after seeing it introduced on the east coast over the past few years and then watching it take off.

“We know consumers increasingly want farmer-direct produce,” Ms Daubney said.

“We like to work that way wherever possible as a farm-based dairy company.”

Earlier this year, the timing was right to form a partnership.

Bannister Downs is now the first WA subscriber to the keg system created by the enterprising, Tasmanian-based, start-up The Udder Way.

“They were very keen to come to WA and to work with us,” Ms Daubney said.

The Udder Way is the brainchild of Launceston builder-turned-cafe owner Edward Crick, who was concerned about all the single-use plastic cartons going into landfills from the 1200 litres of milk per week his three cafes used.

“I thought that was crazy,” Mr Crick said.

“We were buying that much of a single commodity and you get it in two-litre cartons?”

Ms Daubney said customers were guaranteed a farm-fresh product, given Bannister Downs fills its kegs with processed milk, to order, direct from that day’s milking of its free-ranging cows.

The kegs generally go onto delivery trucks that afternoon and can be delivered to Perth the next morning.

Inner suburban Perth gourmet supermarkets, The Good Grocers, at Wembley, and The Herdsman, at Churchlands, were the first in WA to set up the system.

“We have got interest from retail, but also from cafes,” Ms Daubney said.

“Having milk on tap saves cafes a lot of service time from having to handle all those cartons.”

In the short time they have been supplying the milk to the two stores, Ms Daubney said the kegs had saved the equivalent of 1368 two-litre bottles.

“It is the beginning of a big journey and I am looking forward to seeing what this totals in about six months’ time,” she said.

To buy milk-on-tap in-store, customers purchase reusable Bannister Downs glass bottles, which cost $2 each, then pay $2.50 for the milk each time they fill them.

It is slightly cheaper than a pre-packaged, 750mL bottle of Bannister Down’s full cream dairy milk, or one litre supplied in soft, environmentally-friendly packaging, but costs about $1 a litre more than the big supermarkets’ home brand milk.

Bannister Downs is a proud family farming operation spanning four generations, going back to Edith and James Daubney who founded their dairy farm in Northcliffe in 1924.

Sue and her husband Matt – Edith’s and James’ grandson – and their four children are the latest incumbents at the helm, having survived the destabilisation caused by deregulation of the dairy industry in 2000.

The have grabbed opportunities to innovate ever since.

“We talked for a long time about the possibility of processing and bottling our own milk,” Ms Daubney said.

“We were finding it hard to see a rewarding future in handing our milk over at the farmgate and not having further responsibility for it.”

They turned the business into a large-scale vertically integrated operation, with a world-leading voluntary robotic dairy, in The Creamery.

They also introduced innovative, environmentally-friendly packaging for their range of award-winning products.

The company also formed a partnership with Hancock Agriculture’s executive chairman Gina Rinehart, which has provided funding and business expertise to further its development.

The Creamery is the hub of the farm and it allows the Daubneys to ensure every single detail is being met to deliver ethical, sustainable and award-winning dairy products to their customers every day.

“It’s very hands-on,” Ms Daubney said.

“It reminds us where we started.”

The Daubneys’ run almost 5000 dairy cattle, with about 2000 milking at any one time across two sites.

They produce about 12 million litres per annum, which is steadily growing but took a massive hit this summer with the first drought in 120 years in the region.

“We had almost seven months without rain which tested every bit of resilience for everyone,” Ms Daubney said.

“Our herd is only now starting to recover from the damage this disruption caused as our feed ration was very compromised compared to what they are used to.”

The Upper Way’s first partnership was with a family-owned and operated dairy farm, similar to Bannister Downs, near Launceston.

Like Banister Downs, the award-winning, paddock-to-plate Ashgrove dairy business processes its milk onsite and produces a range of milk, cheese, cream, butter and cheese-based packaged snacks.

It is one of only three Tasmanian dairies, still in private ownership, that The Udder Way works with, after Bega bought the rest last year, Mr Crick said.

Its London partnership, which began in October last year, has quickly become one of its biggest.

Though, Mr Crick said the product has taken off in WA “more quickly than we expected”, having only started in July.

“All the dairies we work with are family-owned,” he said.

“They are all looking for a point of difference to the big processors and ways to compete with them.

“The big milk processes compete on price.

“We can offer something different.”

Mr Crick said The Udder Way kegs have a guaranteed eight to 10 year lifespan – it could be longer – and can be reused 800 times.

The kegs are internationally certified, food-grade, 100 per cent reusable and recyclable, and free of BPA and phthalate plasticisers.

Each keg equates to a reduction of 302.4 kilograms of single-use plastic waste in its lifetime, while conserving the water and fuel required for milk carton manufacture and recycling.

So far, they have saved just over two million plastic milk bottles, Mr Crick said.

The kegs are suitable for the 12 different milk delivery systems already used in Australia, which gives them a wide range of applications beyond supermarkets, to restaurants and cafes, hotel breakfast rooms, catering companies, mining and building site mess rooms, school canteens, health and aged care facilities and office buildings.

The reusable packing costs dairy subscribers about the same as their equivalent in 2L plastic bottles, lids and a crate, and at the end of their lifespan, the kegs return to The Udder Way for recycling into new kegs.

“We have a lot of corporate customers, as the system helps them meet their enviromental, social and goverance targets to eliminate single use plastic waste,” Mr Crick said.

“What we do differently is that we are supplying reusable packing to dairies with traceability support.”

The company developed The Udder Way app, which connects to a QR code on each keg, to provide full traceability.

It means all the kegs will be returned after being used for their maximum lifespan.

Mr Crick said dairies entered data into the app, which verifies production dates, authenticity, ingredients, location, delivery, uses, efficiency and the reduction in plastic waste.

The app is available through the usual app stores, so it can also be downloaded by end customers, who can scan the QR code on a filled keg to access information about the batch, where and when the keg was made and when it was first used.

Alongside milk on tap, Ms Daubney said Bannister Down continued to innovate its dairy product range, most recently to include lactose-free milk.

The lactose-free milk was this year awarded the coveted Champion Milk at the Perth Royal Show Food Awards, one of many awards which saw Bannister Downs named the Most Successful WA Dairy Exhibitor for 2024.

“It is a very recent addition to our range, and winning Champion Milk with it was a fantastic achievement for the team,” she said.

Article by Belinda Hickman, courtesy of the Farm Weekly.