We are predicting a strong start to the season with cows in good condition after a mild winter and good pasture cover on both our West Coast and Canterbury suppliers’ farms. Our peak milk production day is traditionally in the last week of October – the exact date and how high production will go is always the subject of much debate on-site and the odd haggle.

This year vs. last year

The new season’s start (so far) is a sharp contrast to last year when an unusually wet spring on the West Coast resulted in a lower peak production compared with the previous two years. Fortunately, favourable autumn conditions balanced things out and the season finished strongly to bring volumes back in line with previous years. Many farmer suppliers milked later into the season to take advantage of favourable pasture growth. We collected around 650 million litres of milk during the 2024-25 season from our farmer suppliers.

Since then, we worked hard in the off-season on our winter maintenance programme and as a result our milk collection and manufacturing teams are well prepared for hopefully a record season.

New tankers boost efficiency

We’ve replaced three of our smaller milk tankers from our original fleet configuration with three new 10-axel B-train tankers. These tankers have a 25% larger carrying capacity of up to 39,000 litres and a lower running cost.

These continuous improvements greatly improve efficiencies in bulk milk transport, while demonstrating our focus on innovation and confidence in production volume – especially as we enter the busiest time of the year.