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.
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