Challenge Australian Dairy Pty Ltd has become the second Western Australian dairy in the past few weeks to offer a new dairy brand, launching the Capel Choice cheese label as part facilities upgrade worth as much as $7.5 million.
Challenge Australian Dairy Pty Ltd has become the second Western Australian dairy in the past few weeks to offer a new dairy brand, launching the Capel Choice cheese label as part facilities upgrade worth as much as $7.5 million.
Challenge CEO Peter Giddy said the new brand launch, which coincided with the completion of a $1.5 million upgrade of the Capel cheese processing plant, was part of a strategy to value add to WA milk and, ultimately, deliver better prices to dairy farmers.
Northcliffe-based Bannister Downs also launched a new brand a few weeks ago after a revamping its facilities.
Challenge is 49 per cent owned by the Challenge Dairy Cooperative Ltd and 51 per cent owned by QAF Ltd, a listed company based in Singapore.
The new Capel Choice range includes a variety of block, slice and shredded cheeses which will be on retail shelves from December, and claims to be the only hard cheeses processed in WA and made from 100 per cent local Western Australian milk.
QAF's subsidiary Ben Foods will market the new Capel brand in Singapore.
Mr Giddy said his company was also embarking on a $5-$6 million upgrade of its Boyanup dairy.
"That will build a modern manufacturing facility to produce specialised dairy ingredients for Asia," he said.
Mr Giddy said the WA milk was currently used to make base commodity products but the state did not have the scale to compete at that level and, therefore, farmers achieved prices of around 10 per cent lower than their counterparts in big production markets like Victoria and New Zealand.
He said higher value value products will allow WA's world-class milk producers to achieve prices at parity with other "oceanic" producers.
below is a state government announcement on the initiative:
Agriculture Minister Kim Chance today congratulated Challenge Australian Dairy at the launch of its new Capel brand, a Western Australian-owned and manufactured dairy range.
The new range includes 'Capel Choice', a variety of block, slice and shredded cheeses. This will be available on retail shelves from December, and will be the only hard cheeses processed in WA and made from 100 per cent local Western Australian milk.
Mr Chance said the introduction of the new Capel product range reflected the company's push into the domestic and overseas markets of branded cheese products and was the result of its recent $1.5million investment in modernising the Capel dairy processing facility.
"The Gallop Government is very supportive of the increased production of WA foods and to see consumers offered a range of dairy products made with WA milk is good news for the State's dairy industry," the Minister said.
"This new brand is a major milestone for the WA dairy farmer co-operative."
Mr Chance said the State Government, through the Department of Agriculture, was committed to supporting innovation in the State's agri-food industry, which was valued at close to $10billion.
"The State needs investment in food innovation, along with strong international partnerships and efficient business models, in order to expand this export-oriented industry and deliver sustainable returns to their rural and farming communities," he said.
"The Department of Agriculture will continue to work with the WA food industry to achieve this.
"These are very competitive times for the industry and the Gallop Government will continue to encourage innovation and value-adding. We need to keep the State at the forefront of food product development and marketing to ensure an edge in world markets."
