In this new series, Food & Drink Business revisits its Rising Star alumni. Our regular Rising Star feature in the print magazine profiles founders and their young companies, selected for innovation, creativity, tenacity, and potential. This week, we catch up with Gippsland Jersey’s Sallie Jones.
In March 2020, we profiled Gippsland Jersey, a dairy company born from the devastation brought on the Australian dairy industry by Murray-Goulburn Co-operative and Fonterra slashing farm gate milk prices to below the cost of production.
Steve Ronalds, a fifth-generation dairy farmer, was fed up with the unpredictable milk prices and uncertain future of his farming business. Despite producing premium jersey milk, he felt powerless to control his income. After recovering from a severe motorbike accident, he reached a crossroads and decided to take a different path.
Sallie Jones lost her father, Michael Bowen, a second-generation dairy farmer, to suicide just before the milk price crisis of 2016. Sallie channelled her grief into a mission to honour her father’s memory by building something meaningful.
Together, Steve and Sallie have dedicated the past seven years to creating, leading, and building Gippsland Jersey, a rapidly growing grass-roots dairy company. Their company is founded on three core principles: providing a fair price to farmers, addressing mental health stigma, and practicing kindness.
Read the origin story here.
Where is the company today?
The Gippsland Jersey factory is located on my family farm in Lakes Entrance, four hours east of Melbourne, Victoria.
The company produces a range of premium jersey dairy products that are stocked throughout Victoria and New South Wales.
What have been the high points?
- The constant and loyal support from consumers who are our number one salespeople who continue to advocate for us is an absolute highlight.
- from going from not being able to sell our cultured butter to now having a waitlist of five-star restaurants and celebrity chefs giving incredible reviews of our products.
- milkshake vans continue to be a great brand awareness vehicle for us. The $5 milkshake is a real winner amongst young and old.
- a real highlight was hosting an on-farm barista day with 80 baristas from Melbourne where they got to go behind the farm gate and understand where their milk homes from and to have a meaningful relationship with our farmers.
- baristas love of unhomogenised milk is definitely trending. It has larger fat particles than homogenised milk and creamier and slightly sweeter, out milk also naturally contains the A2 protein;
- full fat milk is back baby!; and
- we’ve also just introduced a glass 750ml unhomogenised milk and it’s going gang busters – retro milk.
What have been the challenges?
Growth is fantastic, but managing systems at the same time as you’re growing and expanding your team has its challenges.
At the moment, we are battling with brand awareness in Coles and Woolies and trying to meet sales expectations – the pressure is real, especially because we don’t have a big marketing or advertising budget. Everything is done on the sniff of an oily rag. It’s definitely a challenge we’re up for.
Milk is still not valued appropriately. Today, branded milk is being sold for $1.54 or less into cafes. We find the milk wars are crazy. It’s something we stay right out of. We stick to producing premium jersey milk and supply customers that respect and value our product and our farmers.
Being a regional business, the cost of freight is always a challenge.
Since 2016, Gippsland has lost approximately 400 dairy farmers, reducing the number of farms to about 1050 dairies. The milk pool is shrinking in Australia.
Coles setting a high milk price and going direct to farmers, as well as becoming processors to supply its own milk fridges, puts a lot of pressure on small independent brands to compete. Major supermarkets have so much control from farms right through to supermarket shelves and paying farmers the highest price to sell the lowest cost milk.
Is there anything you would have done differently?
We only look forward, not back.
What are your current goals?
We have a number of New Jersey dairy products that we are keen to bring to the market which will enable us to bring on a few more farmers to supply.
To keep Gippsland Jersey milk in the supermarket fridges we must work hard with our milk sales and continue to build brand awareness.
We want to be the #1 household table milk in Gippsland and Melbourne.
