Bringing the real milk to the townsfolk

Chris Lethbridge bottles Wholy Moo milk straight from the vat on his Hukerenui farm.

Chris Lethbridge has started bottling milk from the vat on his Hukerenui dairy farm and selling it to staff who order it at their places of work in Whangarei.

About 150-200 one and two-litre glass bottles of the unpasteurised, unhomogenised Wholy Moo milk - "We prefer calling it 'real' milk rather than 'raw' milk" - was snapped up when sales started a fortnight ago and Mr Lethbridge is hoping he could soon be selling 1000 bottles a week.

The one-litre bottles sell for $3.50 and the two-litre bottles are $5.50.

Mr Lethbridge, 55, made a splash at the the National Fieldays last year, launching the Teat-Mate dairy cow teat spray which keeps his hands clean and dainty while milking the 360 cows on his 120ha farm at Hukerenui. He and his wife Pauline developed the spray with their friends John and Amanda Hawken, a Hamilton couple with backgrounds in science.

Teat-Mate is based on saline solution, glycerine and aloe vera, avoiding iodine and chlorhexidine traditionally used in teat sprays and aimed at reducing the chance of cows developing mastitis.

Mr Lethbridge said sales of the spray were "okay", but not large at present - some dairy farmers were not spraying their cows as a cost reduction brought on by the low Fonterra milk payout.

The new milk bottling venture was a family affair with Pauline and their daughters Christie, 25, Jessica, 23, and Casey, 18, helping fill the glass bottles which an Auckland company imports from Germany. The Lethbridges pay $1.06 each for the one-litre bottles.

"We wanted to get back to glass because people love it," Mr Lethbridge said.

Wholy Moo buyers are encouraged to return empty bottles for recycling with their next purchase, but no payment is at this stage being offered for the glass as the Hukerenui farm has no means of washing bottles for reuse.

The milk is filtered before bottling and sanitation measures are in place.

"No one has ever died from drinking raw milk globally, but the last thing we want is someone getting a tummy ache," Mr Lethbridge said.

Dairy farmers can sell up to five litres of milk to people at their farms.

Mr Lethbridge is making two deliveries weekly to business premises in Whangarei where staff have ordered milk and he is hoping relaxation of the rules which the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) is expected to make in March next year could allow him to begin home deliveries.

MPI discussion document The sale of raw milk to consumers, produced in May last year, says the Raw Milk Producers Association, set up by 35 producers in 2013, had 54 members in April last year and it was estimated a similar number of dairy farmers who were not members were producing raw milk for sale to consumers.

The document estimates farmers selling more than 40 litres of raw milk daily could spend up to $2874 annually on hygiene and pathogen testing.