A BOLD plan for a Rawsonville dairy to vertically-integrate their business will result in Dubbo having its own milk processing plant for the first time in more than a decade.
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The Little Big Dairy Co will start production at its new on-farm processing plant in October, incorporating one of the most modern and technologically-advanced milk harvesting systems in Australia.
The plant will be supplied by the company's 800-cow herd, which produces top-quality, single-source milk from grazing paddocks along the banks of the Macquarie River.
The Little Big Dairy Co is a completely local business, owned and run by the Chesworth family: Erika and Steve Chesworth, sons Duncan and Campbell Chesworth, and daughter Emma Elliott and her husband Jim.
The Chesworth family has been involved in dairying for more than 100 years, and is now expanding its business into processing to ensure complete quality control and integrity from the pasture in the paddock through to the final product.
The family relocated their dairy to the Rawsonville farm seven years ago from Denman.
Each day they produce 25,000 litres of milk from their 800-cow herd for a yearly total of eight million litres.
Emma Elliot said the company would produce fresh milk, bottled on the day it was milked from the cows in two forms, the usual homogenised milk in plastic bottles as well as non-homogenised milk in glass bottles.
All milk would, however, be pasteurised, she said.
She said the milk in the glass bottles would be like milk of years past with a layer of cream in the neck of the bottle.
"We'll also be producing flavoured milk from syrups we'll make ourselves as well as decadent, premium-quality cream," Ms Elliott said.
Another feature of the company would be to produce its own brand of ice creams which would assist in coping with high production peaks.
"It's something that will give our milk products a longer shelf life," she said.
Although Steve Chesworth's brother is a cheesemaker at Muswellbrook, Ms Elliott said there were no plans to further process their milk into cheeses.
Ms Elliot said the Little Big Dairy Company's products would soon be on sale at the Dubbo Farmers Markets and on the shelves at specially selected cafes and supermarkets around town, including Carlos IGA in South Dubbo West Dubbo IGA, and at the Brigade Fire Station cafe.
"We started the Little Big Dairy Company to deliver the best tasting, single source milk you'll drink to as many people as possible," she said.
" It's our belief that our delicious milk and cream shouldn't be reserved for the lucky few, it should be readily available to local people, supporting the local economy where it's made."
THE Little Big Dairy Company used the description, single sourced milk too point out all of their milk was produced on their dairy farm on the Macquarie River just a few kilometres from Dubbo."
"We like to think of Single Source as our promise to you, ensuring our milk is of the highest quality, traceable down to the very cow that made it," Emma Elliott said.
"We will guide the product from start to finish, from milking through processing and into the bottle," she said.
"I'm so excited to bring our Little Big Dairy milk to the people of Dubbo. It's everything we believe in, captured in a bottle," she said.
Production will start at the Little Big Dairy Co processing plant this October.