Kenilworth Dairies owner John Cochrane feared his award-winning business would go bust during the COVID-19 lockdown, but now it’s expanding.
It was tough going for them during the height of the pandemic, when they had to close their doors to visitors.
But the company’s factory and farms have bounced back and now they’ve taken an extra step in production, with a new bottling plant.
“We’ve been pasteurising milk for a few months but in the next little while we’ll be going into homogenised milk as well,” Mr Cochrane said.
The company also produces hard and soft cheese, mousse and yoghurt.
They started bottling their own milk in August, and pasteurised milk became available in IGA stores in September.
Mr Cochrane said it was the next logical move.
“We are dairy farmers and to keep our dairy farms going we felt we needed to provide the market with what the market wants.”
“We felt we could do that and that there was room (in the market) for us.
“So, to ensure our local farming business we thought we’d go the next step and process and market our own milk.”
But it looked bleak for the business early last year, amid rising COVID-19 cases.
“We thought we were dead,” Mr Cochrane said.
“We were extremely worried, as everybody was, because it was a whole new experience.
“We closed out café, our cellar door, for a couple of months because we could not afford it (COVID-19) to come in here and stop our productions.
“We shut the cafe just to protect what we were doing in the factory.
“But we got through that and we’re up and operating and it’s been going very well since.”
Kenilworth Dairies was one of 43 businesses in Queensland to receive a Rural Economic Development Grant, to help fund the expansion of their business with a new bottling plant.
The grant offered a $250,000 co-contribution to purchase equipment to pasteurise their milk as well as set up a laboratory to monitor their products for quality and safety purposes.
With the help of the grant, the business is a completely independent local dairy provider, with everything produced on site.
They can now create 12,000 litres of milk and deliver milk, cheese, yoghurt and mousse.
While the plant was up and running six months ago, it’s now under-going an expansion, including for homogenised milk production.
Kenilworth Dairies was forged from a cheese factory in the 1950s.
Mr Cochrane became the owner almost four years ago.
“There have been huge changes,” Mr Cochrane said.
“Like everything, you need to go with the times and diversify, which we’re doing.”
The factory runs in affiliation with Cochrane family-owned farms in the Mary Valley.
The dairy has 56 staff.
“We’re looking at growing all the time, looking for factory workers and sales people to grow in proportion,” Mr Cochrane said.
