Dairy farmers will soon supply milk - freshly milked and packaged directly on their own property - directly to local shops. Lely, manufacturer of milking robots, is testing an installation that can be connected to the milking robot for this purpose.
The innovation is expected to hit the market this year. A Dutch supermarket organisation is interested in the concept. The company announced this recently during the Lely Future Farm Days.
It is one of the visions of the future that the company recently shared during its 70th anniversary. Lely presented its expectations of a sustainable, fully automated dairy farm during the Lely Future Farm Days.
Dairy farms can use robotic milking with the Lely Astronaut to separate specific types of milk using the special processing unit. Lely is currently testing such a unit with milk processed in its own yard. The milk, which has its own taste and freshness and can be traced directly to the cow, can be pasteurised and packaged directly from the robot and delivered for local consumption.
Lely, which achieved sales of €506 million last year, saw growth of 12 per cent in the milking robots and farm management segments in 2017. The company will focus more on robotics and data in dairy such as developing milking robots and dairy farm innovations.
Also DDH to cow-specific milk
Direct Dairy Holding (DDH) is also focusing on milk direct from its own yard. The start-up is developing an automatic line that pasteurises milk directly from the milking robot, packs it into stand-up bags and transports it to a cooler for delivery for sale.
Each package contains the milk of a single cow, or cow-specific milk. The information about the cow that supplied the milk can be traced for the end consumer on his smartphone via the number on the packaging. The processing line will initially be set up for whole milk, but can also produce other dairy products.
DDH, founded with Russian entrepreneurs, wants to commission the system together with Dutch dairy farms and demonstrate it to other dairy farmers. Directly packaged cow-specific dairy offers an opportunity for dairy farmers to add value to milk. The company also wants to expand to dairy farms elsewhere in Europe and to companies in the United States in the coming years.
Yoghurt by Margriet 53: micro dairy
Cow-specific is also the full-fat stand yoghurt made from the milk of blister head cow Margriet 53 from organic farm Buitenverwachting. The product was voted the best regional product of the Green Heart at the end of last year. Marrit Schakel from the farm, who produces the yoghurt and sells it in the farm shop, thinks the product won because it is clear that it comes from a short chain. "Every cow on our farm - there are 50 of them - is milked separately and gives milk with its own fat and protein content. So the product is unique and site-specific each time".
The winning cow-specific yoghurt comes from one cow and has a clear origin. Marrit: "Consumers buy the yoghurt in our farm shop and can see the cow in the field. I call this small-scale dairy product micro dairy".
