Production costs and difficulties in the supply chain are thought to be the main reasons the nation’s dairy businesses sign partnerships with large dairy companies — providing stable revenues — but leaving them little control on setting prices.
However, those who have created their own brands, such as Hsinchu’s Siangshan (香山) dairy farm, and Greater Tainan’s Liouying (柳營) dairy farm, have sustained their businesses for more than a decade.
Siangshan Ranch manager Chang Wen-lung (張文龍) said his father started the farm after tasting good milk in Japan.
Photo: Kan Chih-chi, Taipei Times
“We have been importing dairy cows since then,” Chang said, adding that the ranch has 200 cows and about 40 employees.
“While we sell about one-fifth of the total quantity of milk produced to the big corporations, we sell the rest ourselves,” Chang said.
The farm has earned a good reputation, but Chang said that it was still hard work as the management had to maintain a fleet of vans for delivery purposes and find new customers.
Photo: Kan Chih-chi, Taipei Times
The other dairy farm to have made a name for itself is Liouying Ranch, formed by various different dairy farmers in the Liouying area in 2005.
The farm’s dairy division manager Huang Hsiao-an (黃孝安) said that the farm has expanded over the years and now consists of other dairy farmers as far away as Pingtung and Changhua counties.
It is difficult for dairy farms to sustain their own brands due to the cost of the equipment used for testing milk — up to NT$10 million (US$317,600) — and difficulties finding quality management staff, Huang said.
By cooperating with other farmers, we can set a higher standard on quality, Huang said.
Huang said that while the ranch had not enjoyed great reknown in its early days — limited by low production and the high transportation costs — it was still profitable because it sold its milk as having no additives.
The food safety scandal involving the Ting Hsin International Group in early September last year made Liouying milk more popular, Huang said.
Although dairy products have not been overtly affected by the scandal, other dairy farmers in cooperation with Linfengying (林鳳營), boycotted due to its affiliation with Ting Hsin group’s subsidiary Weichuan Co (味全), were fearful that sales of their dairy products would be hit.
Veterinarian Kung Chien-chia’s (龔建嘉) idea to use the Internet to boost sales might prove to be the solution.
While the Web site is not officially launched yet, it has garnered the attention of more than 5,000 netizens.
Kung’s Web site is set to introduce the the dairy farmers’ backgrounds and will allow consumers to choose to buy fresh milk with a click of the mouse.
Kung said that he became aware of the dairy farmers’ difficulties as he often helps dairy farms conduct reproductive testing and, citing the example of Japan, said that with local government support, dairy farmers could develop their own brands and sell their own products.
The Web site hopes to attract investment via crowd-funding — a form of raising funds from Internet users by persuading them to endorse a concept with money. The extra fininaces would go toward exra transportation costs and allow consumers to enjoy fresh milk from local dairy farms, Kung said.
A total lunar eclipse coinciding with the Lantern Festival on March 3 would be Taiwan’s most notable celestial event this year, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said, urging skywatchers not to miss it. There would be four eclipses worldwide this year — two solar eclipses and two lunar eclipses — the museum’s Web site says. Taiwan would be able to observe one of the lunar eclipses in its entirety on March 3. The eclipse would be visible as the moon rises at 5:50pm, already partly shaded by the Earth’s shadow, the museum said. It would peak at about 7:30pm, when the moon would
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday held a ceremony marking the delivery of its 11th Anping-class offshore patrol vessel Lanyu (蘭嶼艦), saying it would boost Taiwan’s ability to respond to Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. Ocean Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chang Chung-Lung (張忠龍) presided over the CGA event in the Port of Kaoshiung. Representatives of the National Security Council also attended the event. Designed for long-range and protracted patrol operations at sea, the Lanyu is a 65.4m-long and 14.8m-wide ship with a top speed of 44 knots (81.5kph) and a cruising range of 2,000 nautical miles (3704km). The vessel is equipped with a
DEFENSE: The US should cancel the US visas or green cards of relatives of KMT and TPP lawmakers who have been blocking the budget, Grant Newsham said A retired US Marine Corps officer has suggested canceling the US green cards and visas of relatives of opposition Taiwanese lawmakers who have been stalling the review of a proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget. The Executive Yuan has proposed the budget for major weapons purchases over eight years, from this year to 2033. However, opposition lawmakers have refused to review the proposal, demanding that President William Lai (賴清德) first appear before the Legislative Yuan to answer questions about the proposed budget. On Thursday last week, 37 bipartisan US lawmakers sent a letter to Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the heads
Two siblings in their 70s were injured yesterday when they opened a parcel and it exploded, police in Yilan said, adding the brother and sister were both in stable condition. The two siblings, surnamed Hung (洪), had received the parcel two days earlier but did not open it until yesterday, the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday in Taiwan, police said. Chen Chin-cheng (陳金城), head of the Yilan County Government Police Bureau, said the package bore no postmark or names and was labeled only with the siblings’ address. Citing the findings of a
RSS