Milk is natural
Milk is natural, made by healthy cows who spend all day grazing on pastures in the sunshine – just as nature intended – and then perfected by our Co-op. Here’s how cows on New Zealand farms make the milk we all enjoy – from grass to glass.
Grazing on grass
Dairy cows spend most of their time eating, sleeping and ruminating (chewing their cud). Our cows spend more time on pasture than anywhere else in the world. 96% of our cows’ diet is fresh, green grass. They can eat about 50 kg of grass every day. Most cows in New Zealand are Friesians (the black and white cows you see when driving past a farm) or Jersey cows (the soft brown cows).
Making milk
It’s amazing how cows turn green grass into white milk. Cows belong to a group of animals called ruminants, an animal with four stomachs, each of which plays a different role in digesting grass into milk. It can take up to two days for a cow’s food to become milk. On average, she can produce anywhere between 25 and 40 litres of milk per day.
Once milk has been adjusted for the desired fat percentage (such as full fat milk, trim or skim milk) and homogenised, it’s then sent through stainless steel pipes across the processing plan to be bottled.
Other milk batches are made into dairy products such as cheese, yogurt, and ice cream.
It is then sent to supermarkets and dairies across New Zealand for families to enjoy.