Clevedon couple working to change minds on farming water buffalo in NZ

Richard and Helen Dorresteyn own and run Clevedon Buffalo Company. Photo / RNZ

By Justin Gregory of RNZ

A family-owned dairy company in Clevedon is working to change minds and habits about the animals New Zealanders can get their dairy products from.

Richard and Helen Dorresteyn own and run Clevedon Buffalo Company on two rented farms 40 minutes east of Auckland.

Since 2007, they have been milking water buffalo to make fresh mozzarella and other dairy products for restaurants, supermarkets and a curious public.

The impetus was to provide fresh mozzarella for the farmers’ market Helen started not long after moving to Clevedon.

“We also thought to make cheese - it had to be a little bit different because there’s a lot of cheese [that] gets imported, frozen, defrosted and then sent around,” she said.

“Whereas buffalo milk, it doesn’t travel well, and freshness is everything.”

When no local makers could be found, the couple decided to do it themselves, bringing in a herd of 60 animals just before Christmas in 2007.

There were initial difficulties in getting the herd comfortable with being in a milking shed as well as learning the tricky process of making cheese.

Then began the task of convincing New Zealanders to try their products.

“Quite honestly, people didn’t know what it was when I started selling it,” Helen told RNZ’s Country Life.

“They would look at you in horror.”

While the couple were the first to milk water buffalo in this country, they were not the first to import the animals to New Zealand.

Some were introduced in the early 1990s with the hope that they might thrive in the wetter parts of the country.

A milking herd of water buffaloes enjoying their feed. Photo / RNZ

Water buffalo can now be found on farms in Auckland, Waikato, the West Coast of the South Island, and in Nelson.

The herd is milked year-round, with the bulk of the milking weighted towards summer, when cheese consumption is at its peak.

A fully-grown female water buffalo with characteristic curved horns approaches the farm gate to investigate newcomers. Photo / RNZ

The company rents two farms and operates a factory in south Auckland to make the cheese as well as yoghurt and pies.

The company has now begun to export a range of marinated feta to Singapore.

A two-week old water buffalo calf, recently separated from its mother, peers out of a stall in the calving shed. Photo / RNZ

Eighteen years on from importing their first herd, Richard is not convinced that acceptance and understanding of the animals and their products have really taken place in New Zealand.

“You’d think there would be,” he said.

“We’ve been on Country Calendar, we’ve been in a lot of magazines, we’ve been on Campbell Live, and I still meet people every day that have got no idea there’s water buffalo in the country and that you can actually drink their milk and eat their products from their milk.”

While work continues to change local minds, Richard hoped to produce a “really, really good” blue cheese in the near future.

“It will be a bit of a learning curve.

“We’ll see what happens.”

- RNZ