Student Pack
Our History
1900-1909
The Dairy Farmers Co-operative Milk Co. Ltd was formed on January 15, 1900. Sixty five stakeholders, many of them dairy farmers from New South Wales’ Illawarra region, came together and agreed to run the new organisation on ‘true co-operative lines’. The Co-operative would help these early farmers work together to effectively market their milk and butter directly to consumers in the city.
1910-1919
The Dairy Farmers business grew steadily, supplying more and more milk to the expanding city of Sydney.
By 1918, we had secured our position in Sydney by purchasing the Ultimo site in central Sydney. We also began our move into Newcastle, a fast growing town 160 kilometres to the north.
1920-1929
By the start of the 1920s, Dairy Farmers was receiving, processing and selling nearly twenty three million litres (five million gallons) of milk a year. Today, we process approximately this many litres during a typical week.
In 1925, glass bottles were introduced in Sydney. As a result, the traditional practice of vendors ladling milk from cans or tanks on the back of their carts began to be phased out.
1930-1939
Widespread price-cutting led to Sydney’s ‘Milk War’ which only ended when a reformed industry Milk Board took control of supplies into Sydney and Newcastle. The Board appointed a handful of organisations to act as agents to sell milk to the public. Dairy Farmers was the only organisation appointed as an agent in both Sydney and Newcastle.
We also established our first bottling plant in 1935 in our Ultimo, Sydney facility.
1940-1949
The combination of World War II and a severe drought affected milk supplies at the start of the 1940s. Milk was made part of the daily diet of Australian and American servicemen because of its health benefits. This led to rationing. In 1942, the government declared Dairy Farmers a ‘protected undertaking’ to ensure we could supply as much milk as possible to soldiers and civilians.
1950-1959
Dairy Farmers was a major participant in the Government’s policy of supplying free milk to school children. By 1951 the Dairy Farmers program, which was first started in 1941, was delivering milk daily to 500 schools in metropolitan Sydney.
In 1954 we opened a new bottling plant in Griffith to supply residents in the Canberra suburbs of Queanbeyan, Cooma and the Snowy Mountains. By 1956, we were supplying 90 per cent of all our milk in bottles.
1960-1969
With Australians developing more multicultural tastes, we started producing cottage cheese and flavoured yogurts at our Ultimo facility in the mid 1960s.
In 1967, we introduced a logo using a daisy flower on a stem. Our logo today still uses the daisy flower and is synonymous with Dairy Farmers.
1970-1979
Dairy Farmers invested in an Ultra High Temperature (UHT) production line in 1977. The long-life UHT milk was a success and we gained an immediate market in the hotel and airline industries.
1980-1990
During this time, we continued merger talks with a number of other major milk suppliers which resulted, in late 1989, in the large Hunter Valley and the Shoalhaven Co-operatives joining the Dairy Farmers Co-operative to form the country’s leading dairy business, Australian Co-operative Foods (ACF), to be known as Dairy Farmers.
1992 - 1993
Dairy Farmers began to innovate and developed a plan to produce a broader range of dairy products and to secure markets in more locations than just New South Wales.
Some of our innovations included the ‘Farmers Best’ brand which delivered a no-cholesterol product for a heart and health conscious era.
We also relaunched the SKI yogurt range through a new dual-pack design marketing the product as ‘SKI Double-Up’ and consumers took to the product in droves.
By 1993, we had acquired Victoria’s Midland Milk. This gave us access to the Melbourne market for the first time and provided us with the Shepparton milk plant. It was our first step in our national expansion.
1994 - 1999
We doubled our business outside of New South Wales with the innovative ‘SKI Double-Up’ yogurt.
The rationalisation and up-grading of facilities continued with the amalgamation of the recently acquired New South Wales based Wyong, Kempsey and Orange milk businesses.
We now started to form new marketing alliances – one with Malanda Dairy Foods in Queensland and another with Dairy Vale in South Australia.
By the close of 1997, we had purchased the COON, Mil Lel and Fred Walker cheese brands, and the licence for the Cracker Barrel brand.
We formally launched Dairy Farmers milk in Victoria and purchased the following brands - Lite White, moove, Shape and Good One.
We also made history by completing the first interstate merger between co-operatives by merging with the Queensland-based Queensco-Unity Dairyfoods Co-operative (QUD). We also undertook a merger in Far North Queensland and integrated the Dairy Vale business into Dairy Farmers.
2000
This year marked our centenary.
We had become the largest branded dairy business in Australia which was remarkable considering we had the majority of our supply base outside of Victoria.
The dairy industry was de-regulated on 1 July removing regulated farm-gate prices and quotas. Our activities in the past few years had helped us grow strongly and we were now effectively positioned for the new environment.
2001 - 2004
We completed major upgrades to our processing plants and began exporting cheese and whey powder to key markets in Asia.
In 2004, our farmer shareholders agreed, via a ballot, to change the course of the Dairy Farmers business. This meant making fundamental changes to the business to better expose its underlying value ahead of a potential share market listing.
2005 - 2007
As a result, we began our most far-reaching restructuring program ever, the aim of which was to transform the business into a leading fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) company within two to four years.
The dramatic program saw processing facilities pared down to ten key sites across the country; the exit of non-core businesses such as rural trading and some dairy commodity processing; and, significantly invested in our brands. This resulted in our unveiling of ‘eight champion brands’ which were: Dairy Farmers, Cracker Barrel, COON, dare, OAK, moove, Shape and SKI.
In 2006, we brought together our corporate social responsibility activities under the umbrella of the Dairy Farmers Creating Greener Pastures program. Australian entertainment legend John Farnham became Dairy Farmers’ Goodwill Ambassador for the program.
And to cap off what Australians have known for a long time, Dairy Farmers was officially voted Australia’s most trusted brand in the 2006 and 2007 Australian Reader’s Digest poll.
In 2007, we were the first dairy company in Australia to introduce a freshness seal on our range of white milk products to maximise freshness and quality.
And, for the first time in the history of Dairy Australia’s Grand Dairy Awards, a white milk product – Dairy Farmers Whole White Milk – took out the coveted Grand Champion Dairy Product gong, making our milk the 'best tasting' milk in the country!
We also launched the first low fat yogurt in Australia which retained a thick and creamy texture. Dairy Farmers Thick & Creamy was an instant success with consumers and remains one of the most successful product launches in the history of the dairy industry.
2008
On 13 November, ACF announced that members had overwhelmingly supported the National Foods proposal to acquire the Co-operative. The proposal is still subject to court approval.
