The Rural Voice, 2002-08, Page 30BUILDING AN
INDUSTRY
Dairy sheep producers create
co-operative to build their market
one litre at a time
Story and photos
by Keith Roulston
th Bzikot show off three
eeps' milk products.'
Jn an era when even farmers in established farm
commodities can find it hard to grow their markets,
brave are those hardy souls who decide to go into an
area where there's no marketing infrastructure. Such are
the five farm families involved in the Ewenity Dairy Co-
operative.
The new co-operative, designed to build a market for
sheeps' milk products, was formed 18 months ago and the
exciting, though tiring, work of finding markets is still
preoccupying the small group of members.
The impetus for the co-op was the lack of promise in
the market for sheeps' milk at the time, recalls Elisabeth
Bzikot who farms with her husband Eric near Conn.
Originally the idea was to market milk for a whole
26 THE RURAL VOICE
group of farmers, she says, and by pooling production be
able to offer a security of supply for processors. The co-op
would also develop quality control standards for all
members. "We could enable the producer to have a decent
return," she says by creating more bargaining power than
individual producers could have on their own.
The group was encouraged by stories that the formation
of the Mornington Heritage Cheese Company had
increased goats' milk prices by five or 10 per cent by
providing competition for other processors, she said.
But market conditions changed the plans. There had
been great promise when a new company in the Tavistock
area had announced it would become a main processor for
sheep milk and indeed began buying all the milk it could
get (sheep milk can be frozen and stored). The company
was offering a small premium over other buyers and soon
had most of the milk produced in the province.
The problem came when the company couldn't get its
plant up and running as quickly as planned and suddenly it
stopped buying milk. By then other buyers had been
starved for product because of the volume the company
had been buying. Prices tumbled.
"We found there wasn't a ready market for our product
and what's more it didn't look as if there would be," says
Bzikot who with her husband was just bringing their flock
into milk production at the time. "So we decided we would
go into processing ourselves."
The company became incorporated in June 2001 with
the help of the Canadian Co-operative Association and
consultant George Alkalay of Northfield Ventures Ltd.,
who also helped set up such new generation co-ops as
Farm Fresh Poultry, Quality Jersey Products and
Mornington Heritage Cheese. Alkalay's expertise helped
the group get Canadapt funding to help develop products
The Alkalay connection is also evident in the fact the
new co-op contracts with Mornington to produce its
products. Mornington in turn rents use of Quality Jersey
Products' Seaforth plant in its off hours.
"We've had a very good relationship with Mornington,"
says Eric Bzikot. "They've been very helpful to us."
Diament has been doing product development at her
home. It was she who developed the soft cheese that is the
most recent product offered.
The company started with yogurt, feta and, most
recently, a soft "fresh" cheese. "It's a very light, creamy -
textured fresh cheese," Bzikot says.
Bzikot who has been going to the Waterloo Farmers'
Market for three and a half years, promotes the product
through her stall there. As well, several delicatessens and
health food stores in the Kitchener -Waterloo area also sell
the products.
She and Diament have been breaking into the specialty
markets in Toronto, just having returned from a delivery
trip to Whole Food Market, the new organic food market in
Toronto and The Big Carrot, a Targe health food outlet.
Shoppers in these stores are the kind of people who can
afford the prices that the co-op needs to charge.
"It's never going to be a huge market," Bzikot says.
"We're never going to become a Parmalat or even
Chapman's (ice cream). We're always going to appeal to
specialty markets. We're always going to be a small niche
and therefore we should get what we can for our product."
While there are four possible markets for dairy sheep