This week the Australian Dairy Plan was launched highlighting an opportunity for Australia to produce almost 1 billion more litres of milk by 2025. However with sustainability increasingly driving consumers food purchasing decisions, one of the key success factors for the industry will be to meet these newly identified targets in ways that minimise environmental impact while retaining and building nutritional value and choice.
It was these issues that formed the basis of a discussion about the future of dairy in the September session of ‘The Virtual Lunch Room’. Speakers included Helen Dornom, Manager of Sustainability, including Food Safety and Integrity from Dairy Australia, Veronica Fil, Co-founder and CEO at Grounded Foods, an Australian plant based cheese company that are launching in the US in November, and Simon Schulz, Founder at Schulz Organic Farms, a third generation dairy farm founded in 1972 and located in Timboon, Victoria.
Speakers agreed a multi-pronged approach is needed to drive a more sustainable future for dairy and change that positively impacts consumers, the environment and animal welfare needs to be balanced with delivering returns to businesses, producers and farmers.
As we look to the future of dairy, three key themes arose from the discussion.
A Need to Widen the Landscape
To provide consumers with more sustainable choices, the dairy industry, farmers and plant based producers all need to be part of the solution.
According to Dornom, the industry needs to be flexible, to think globally and aim high, but also provide practical pathways to get there. “The seven most expensive words are ‘We’ve always done it this way’,” she said, referring to the need for continuous innovation and improvement.
For Fil, Grounded are growing the options available for mainstream consumers by providing a plant based cheese from cauliflower and hemp seeds that is sustainable, affordable, tasty and naturally nutritious. “We don’t expect people to give up dairy as it feeds a lot of people but we do believe in widening the landscape’, she said.
Schulz Organic Dairy tackle the issue from a number of perspectives including providing milk that is purposely limited to local and direct distribution, using returnable glass bottles and putting in time and effort to enhance the health of their soil.
“Our philosophy is to minimise processing. We don’t use ultrafiltration, homogenisation, standardisations or permeates meaning the seasonality of the milk is maintained along with its nutritional integrity”, Schulz said.
Leading Change
While common practise in the food sector is to follow consumer trends, a more sustainable future requires producers and the industry to find the balance between following trends and leading change. This approach helps businesses differentiate and assists consumers to make choices in alignment with their values.
From a dairy industry perspective, Helen recognises the importance of balancing what the community wants with key issues the industry feels it has a responsibility to address. This includes setting targets for reducing food waste, respecting human rights and improving life satisfaction ratings of dairy workers, all issues that are included in the industry’s sustainability framework.
In 2018 Shulz identified the dairy industry puts out the equivalent of two billion one litre plastic bottles a year. While a small contributor to the problem, the business sought out ways to avoid this and invested heavily in a research project centred on putting milk in glass, a highly successful project and one in which they are looking to continue while making it more economically sustainable.
Grounded have challenged the way plant based cheeses have traditionally been made by approaching the innovation from a completely new angle – that of a fine dining chef Shaun Quade, also Fil's partner, playing with leftover vegetables in his kitchen.
“Shaun came up with a process that involved fermented cauliflower and hemp seeds. I have no idea how this formulation made sense to him but that’s a fine dining chef for you. He’s not a food scientist and he’s come at it completely from left field”, said Fil.
Commit for the long haul
A more sustainable future requires a long term vision and all three speakers highlighted their commitment for the long haul. The dairy industry’s Sustainability Framework has a ten year horizon with targets set for 2030 linking initiatives both locally and into global roadmaps like the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
While Grounded will be releasing their first range of products into the US market in November they are already working on the next range and according to Veronica, ‘are committed to never stopping’.
For Schulz, he’s looking even further out and in the next 30 years sees a move away from pasture monocultures in dairy toward greater biodiversity, investment in tree plantations on the farm and more engagement with their communities and consumers.
“Consumers are calling out for farmers to communicate with them and to show them their lifestyle - this is one of our successes. They’re keen to engage with brands that are open and transparent. We need to step out and help connect consumers to their food – it’s what people want”, he said.
Schulz is only at the beginning of its journey and in another 50 years Schulz believes the farm will look completely different, perhaps with milk crates made from recycled plastic bottles, bees, organic honey and yoghurt and may be even some non-dairy products made from local oats. “We may or may not explore the non-dairy space but as a business we want to keep our ideals open and not be dictated to being just dairy, we want to diversify a lot more”.
The Virtual Lunch Room is a monthly online forum sharing perspectives on the future of food, providing a platform for businesses to share their stories of change toward a more sustainable future, while embracing a diversity of perspectives. It is an initiative by Sharon Natoli, founding director of Food & Nutrition Australia, author, speaker and specialist in the future of food.
