More sheep milk coming soon
Friday, June 24, 2011
by BETTER FARMING STAFF
A St. Marys’ specialty dairy will triple the size of its production facility and install new equipment in an effort to build new market opportunities.
“We’re hoping over the next five years we will see likely $20 million invested at the farm level between the expansion on farms and the number of blocks that we need to fill at the plant,” said Stew Cardiff, Shepherd Gourmet Dairy’s president and one of its original founders. His comments were captured in a video of a presentation of provincial funding that was posted on YouTube by the Town of St. Marys. He could not be reached for comment.
The province announced Monday that it would be contribute $1.3 million to the expansion under the rural economic development program. Local media reports indicate that it would cost about $4.5 million to complete. Cardiff could not be reached for comment.
During a presentation at the St. Marys plant on Monday, Perth MPP John Wilkinson, who is also the province’s minister of research and innovation, noted the grant would help the dairy to quickly expand and take advantage of market opportunities.
Initially located in Tavistock before a fire destroyed the plant there in 2008, Cardiff projects that the improvements will create more than 40 new jobs and source sheep milk from 75 Ontario farms, says a provincial news release that announced the grant.
The company makes sheep, goat and cow’s milk blends feta cheese as well as 100 per cent sheep milk yogurt and ricotta. It partners with the Greek food distributor, manufacturer and importer Krinos Foods Ltd. to distribute its products across Canada.
Eric Bzikot, who, with his wife Elisabeth owns Best Baa Dairy in Fergus, says there are about 100 sheep dairy producers in the province and a handful of processors. Shepherd Gourmet Dairy is the largest, however, Best Baa, is the only one to process sheep milk exclusively, Bzikot says. Best Baa processes milk from 16 producers, all of which milk 100 ewes or less. Most of its producers are Mennonites.
Bzikot says there is a strong demand for the dairy’s products: yogurt, cheese, fluid milk and, since last year, ice cream. Those who are interested in the products include “foodies” who want novel food products, those who want an alternative to large-scale agricultural production products and those who are have lactose intolerance to cow’s milk.
About 11 per cent of Ontario’s population is lactose intolerant, he says. And while sheep’s milk also contains lactose, about 90 per cent of those affected can tolerate it.
Bzikot says even though Best Baa’s products sell for about twice the amount of regular milk products, there’s a lot of interest from retailers. He calls the province’s industry “embryonic” and estimates there’s room for about 100 to 200 more producers in the province “so long as we don’t insist on them all being huge.”
It’s got a very good future, he says. “But we can mess it up if we encourage too much production and can’t sell it at an adequate price and then we drop the price and then people find it’s not worth doing.” Or, alternatively, “if we short the market and people who would want to retail our products can’t get it or we have an intermittent or unreliable supply.” BF