Harvey Fresh is now owned by the Chinese, they bought it about 6 months ago. If you really want to buy a WA owned milk and the only one that the cows eat grass and not feed lot, then you need to buy Bannister Downs. It’s more expensive, but as I said, grass fed and they look after their cattle
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How depressing to see your sentiment on the first look at this forum!
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In addition to the Choice articles, Checkout did a good overview on the topic, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIOvRO8k7uI
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I go to the local fruit shop and buy farmer owned milk from the Sunshine coast. I do not buy milk from the supermarket. I prefer to support the local farmers.
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we buy our milk from Woolies. I drink Hi Lo and my wife drinks full cream. the milk is farmers own and is done for Woolies. The Hi Lo has more colour than normal HI Lo and more taste. My wife’s full cream milk is what it says. Much more colour and some real cream that floats to the top. you need to shake it before you can use it. She loves it. The milk comes from Margaret River. Quite often Woolies run out of stock, so there are a lot of people buying it. OK it cost more but is real milk not some watered down looking stuff. We are on a pension and as long as we can afford it will buy Farmers own. A bit extra for quality
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We buy most of our milk at Aldi
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I support the farmers by buying milk from Aussie Farmers Direct - and home delivered too.
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I buy Dairy Farmer Coop Milk, like Dairy Farmers or Norco, in fact, I have rediscovered the joy of non-homogenised milk, which is very nice, fresh cream up the top, where it is supposed to be, and without that oily taste. For emergencies, I will have some UHT milk in the cupboard.
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I purchase Country Valley milk which fortunately is in my supermarket, Highlands Organic or Norco, in the hope I am supporting local first before the big suppliers. My other requirement is that the milk not carry any religious fee based certification.
I agree. Farmers Own from Woolworths is one of the best. Maleny Gold and Organic Milk also.
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The elephant in the room is that non-farming businesses fail every day. If you can’t make money doing what you do, then do something else. We shouldn’t be drinking milk anyway. Life is just as tough in the big city.
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Thanks for your comment. The permeate debate is an interesting one, when CHOICE looked at the issue it found: “Permeate-free labelling appears to be a marketing move in response to concerns from some consumers about its use in milk, but there’s no evidence to suggest you should avoid it for nutritional or safety reasons.” You can read more about it here: https://www.choice.com.au/food-and-drink/dairy/milk/buying-guides/milk#permeate
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There is no reason to avoid permeate, @dcgolfer.[quote=“bushv, post:31, topic:4742”]
I purchase Country Valley milk which fortunately is in my supermarket, Highlands Organic or Norco, in the hope I am supporting local first before the big suppliers.
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Buying from a supermarket will always support big business first, @bushv.
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I swapped to Country valley milk, or farmers union, depending on what was available. But I actually found that since switching it would go straight through me. I am now back on Woolworth’s milk. My body doesn’t seem to disagree with it.
Always has been and always will be Norco for me, like other co-ops the money stays in the community and gets spent in the community, like farmers markets, buying Australian seafood from trawlers etc, lets do what we can when we can to keep Aussie dollars in Aussie hands.
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We live on the sunshine Coast and are lucky to have a few local dairies to buy milk from,directly from the farmers. Personally we use Maleny Dairies, some would consider it pricey but it is local, exceptional quality and the full cream milk is glorious to drink, The glob of cream on tip is a fight to see who gets it on their cereal or in their coffee.
If you have a local dairy congratulations, buy there.
Avoid the store brand milk
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I found the permeate debate quite amusing and perplexing, as permeate is part of milk…is in all milk and everyone drinks it when they consume milk. It is not an industrial or process product,…it is naturally occurring in milk.
It comprises principally of milk-sugar (lactose), vitamins and minerals components of milk and if more is added to milk, it may in fact improve the nutritional qualities of the milk (namely increase vitamin and mineral concentrations) without increasing fat content. In today’s day and age where there is an over consumption of low nutritional value processed foods, addition of permeate may also be beneficial to those who don’t receive these vitamins and minerals through solid food consumption.
The added permeate debate is like saying not to buy wholemeal flour as wholemeal flour has bran (a byproduct of white flour production) added to it during the manufacturing process.
I bit ridiculous and possibly driven by marketing teams in companies which think they can get a competitive advantage by saying that their milk doesn’t have ‘added permeate’, even though the same milk has permeate naturally in it.
The flip side it what to do with permeate (lactose, minerals and vitamins) which results from milk processing. If it isn’t added to milk then it may become a waste and disposed of as a liquid trade waste or fed to animals which digestive systems are not developed to consume milk…which may cause increased greenhouse gas production through increased methane generation (through flatulence).
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I buy branded UHT milk because we always use skim milk. In terms of freshness it lasts and smells much better than the refrigerated skim milk. It does concern me that the UHT branded mild is owned by Murray Golburn. I’d like to think I’m supporting our frontline producers (farmers) but as the MG cooperative has been in the news a lot lately, I am beginning to wonder. However in terms of branded UHT skim milk there is no other brand available in our local grocers. I would love to see another company give the, some competition.
How about crowdfunding a class action on behalf of our farmers? Those of us who saw the 4 Corners report about the crisis in our dairy industry would be wondering, how can it be legal for Murray Goulburn to deduct money “owing” . Farmers who are often already in debt, are facing dire consequences. Has anyone really looked at the Murray Goulburn contracts? Should we the public find a way to crowd fund a class action?
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I agree with this consumer & do the same buying the smaller / local milk & dairy products whenever possible, just wish it was easier to know if this actually helps support our farmers either directly or indirectly ??
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