"We replicated a cow's rumen in the lab and then added our special Kowbucha probiotic strains," he told The Country Sport Breakfast's Brian Kelly.
"We have a huge library of probiotic strains and some of these have shown to reduce methane by up to 50 per cent."
Getting Kowbucha out of the lab and on-farm involved more teamwork with AgResearch, along with the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium (PGgRc) and Massey University, Whineray said.
The on-farm trials will show how the probiotics perform in a real environment, where a group of calves will have Kowbucha as part of their regular milk feeding.
Kowbucha is just one example of a number of GHG solutions Fonterra is pursuing.
The co-op is also working with Royal DSM, a global science-based company, to look into the potential of its feed additive product Bovaer.
Bovaer can lower methane emissions from cows by over 30 per cent in non-pasture-based farming systems and Fonterra is investigating whether it could do the same for New Zealand's pasture-based farms.
The co-op is also partnering with MPI and DairyNZ - to expand a promising trial with Nestlé - to include plantain in a cow's diet to reduce the amount of nitrogen produced.
This would reduce carbon emissions and improve freshwater quality.
Another collaboration involves Australian organisation, Sea Forest - to see if it's possible to reduce emissions by incorporating seaweed in cows' feed.
Meanwhile, sustainability was a major focus at the recent COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow.
"The grass-fed production system we have in New Zealand, the hard work by the farmers and employees in scale production means - even including delivery - we're the most carbon-efficient producer of dairy in the world, but we've got to continue to improve on that," Whineray said.
Fonterra recently announced its aspiration to be Net Zero by 2050 and is working to exit coal at the 29 sites where it's still used, by 2037.
Only nine of the sites remained and that number was going down, Whineray said.
"The ninth one ... that's in Stirling in Otago and the foundations are well underway there for that conversion.
"That will soon make it eight to go."
New Zealand dairy farmers already had the lowest carbon footprint in the world, but there was still room for improvement, Whineray said.
By 2025 every Fonterra farmer would have a comprehensive Farm Environment Plan (FEP) which would give them an "individual report on their biological greenhouse gas emissions," he said.
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"That's at 53 per cent of our farms at the moment, that'll be 100 per cent at 2025.
"With that knowledge it then allows people to take really meaningful steps in decarbonisation."
Ultimately working with others helped Fonterra achieve significant change faster and was also a "far more stimulating work environment," Whineray said.
"We're open to lots of ideas - we certainly don't have the monopoly on those - we want to make sure we can get the best possible outcomes for nutrition for our customers and for the planet.
