October 5, 2023 • 50 mins
Sheep milking is providing the perfect value add, and creating opportunities for the whole Ravenwood family, at Wairarapa’s Fernglen Farm.
Sheep tick all the boxes for this entrepreneurial family, from a nutrition, sustainability and environmental perspective.The picturesque coastal farm is home to 1300 milking ewes, which are milked once a day at a purpose-built facility on the property, near Riversdale beach.
The milk, which provides a nutritious alternative to cow’s milk, is turned into a number of products, including flavoured milk and yoghurt.Cam Ravenwood has a passion for nutrition, especially its role in sports and muscle recovery, and became interested in sheep milking after seeing a newspaper cutting in 2015, his last year at high school.
Fernglen Farm Website: www.fernglenfarm.co.nz
Facebook: Fernglen Farm Fernglen Farm | Facebook
Instagram: @fernglenfarm Fernglen Farm (@fernglenfarm) | Instagram
Sheep tick all the boxes for this entrepreneurial family, from a nutrition, sustainability and environmental perspective.The picturesque coastal farm is home to 1300 milking ewes, which are milked once a day at a purpose-built facility on the property, near Riversdale beach.
The milk, which provides a nutritious alternative to cow’s milk, is turned into a number of products, including flavoured milk and yoghurt.Cam Ravenwood has a passion for nutrition, especially its role in sports and muscle recovery, and became interested in sheep milking after seeing a newspaper cutting in 2015, his last year at high school.
Fernglen Farm Website: www.fernglenfarm.co.nz
Facebook: Fernglen Farm Fernglen Farm | Facebook
Instagram: @fernglenfarm Fernglen Farm (@fernglenfarm) | Instagram
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Welcome to down to Earth, broughtto you by a Young Country. This
is the podcast for the go getters, the big dreamers, the innovators of
the primary sector. I'm your host, Rebecca Greeves, and we're taking a
closer look at young people in theprimary industries who have dared to think big,
pushed the limits and give it ago in business. We'll be asking
(00:30):
how they got to where they arenow and what they've learned along the way,
and what their advice is to otheraspiring Eggrey innovators. So sell in
and listen up as we serve youa healthy dose of inspiration, motivation and
maybe even challenge your thinking a little. Welcome into season two of down to
(00:52):
Earth, formerly known as From theGround Up. There may be a slight
name change, but the content remainsthe same, exceptional innovators in the primary
sector sharing their stories with us,so be prepared to dive in. Thanks
to the continued support of Ensie farmLife Media. Without you, this podcast
would not be possible. On theeast coast of the North Island, there
(01:17):
is a farm producing a range ofproducts made from sheep's milk. Ferng Glen
Farm is an intergenerational business with afocus on sustainability amongst other things. And
I'm really excited to be joined todayby Cam Raven Moodor do you like Cam
or Cameron? Is it Caim isgood for me? Yeah? Okay,
(01:38):
cool, Cam from fern Gland Farmsis joining us today and we're going to
have a real chat about the worldof sheep milking and what they're up to
there at Fernland. So I'm reallylooking forward to this. And yeah,
welcome to the From the ground UpPodcast. Yeah. No, it's a
pleasure to be here. It's alwaysexciting to talk about sheep milking and hopefully
(02:00):
a few more people about it andthe benefits and whatnot. Fantastic. Okay,
Well, on that note, canyou tell me what you guys actually
do at for Englyn Vam, Like, what's your elevator? Pitch in a
nutshell? You know what? Whatare you producing? And yeah, what
is it all about? Yeah?So we're pasta to pasture to product production,
(02:23):
family owned business producing sheep milk intohigh quality sheet milk products. We've
started off with a pre viouic flavoredmilk drink and then moved into just a
natural play drink, plain milk wholemilk, and now we're also starting to
look more at valu adding it andso we've just launched a yoga and we're
(02:46):
looking at other options as well aroundcheese and gelato and in a few other
Yeah, there's obviously the many productsyou can make with dairy, which is
really cool, and we're just startingto explore some of those more shaft stable
products and basically like what we're targetingor what which on do sheets a really
good alternative for people who can't drinkow milks. So it really feels the
(03:08):
needs, which is something that thatpeople finding more and more that that cowdery
is upsetting their tummies. So we'rejust trying to have basically an animal alternative
that that fits that need instead ofsome of these plant juices that are out
there that may not actually have thesame nutritional quality. So we're just yeah,
(03:31):
we're from a nutritional perspective, we'rethinking it's a really good product and
help those people who can't actually getother types of dairy into their diet.
So, yeah, I noticed howyou said plant juice there, not plant
milk. I like that. Sowhat is what is so good about sheep
(03:51):
milk? Sell me? On thebenefits. Yeah, so we really fell
in love with sheet more basically fromI've got a really, uh really passion
about nutrition, so is my brother, and that's what really got us interested
for a start. When we firstlook looked into it was basically has two
(04:12):
percent more protein and calcium, aboutforty percent high magnesium high and pilate,
phosphorus basically most of micro nutrients.So immediately that sort of started the dall
make us wonder why it's not available, not a milk to be drunk,
especially from an ethlete perspective for highprotein levels, and then like looking at
(04:35):
the protein breakdown isolate busing in valenI hope I've got those right there,
the three most important amano acids forbasically muscle recovery, and they're found in
sheep milk more than double watson cow'smilk. And so yeah, it's just
like starting to look into it froman intuitional perspective and it really excited us.
(04:59):
And then we looked down the digestibility. I mean, it's still have
been worked done on it, butthe sheet mink is supposed to be digested
in around forty five minutes, soit's really quick to be absorbed into the
body. The bioavailability of nutrients isas strong as good. It's like at
the right levels for the body toabsorb them. Which yet looking at from
(05:19):
like a training perspective, after ahard training or hard game, it's almost
perfect because replenishing what you've used quicklyand so there was a big thing and
then like that's from a spoiling perspective, but also the quick digestibility that also
helps those people who are intolerant tocow's milk. It's just easier on the
(05:40):
tummy, which has been really encouraging. We've found people that have been off
Calgary for twenty odd years and havestarted using our sheet milk and have had
no issues. Yeah, it's reallycool to be able to offer a really
nutritious product that people haven't been ableto have, but now I can start
introducing it back into their diet.And then yeah, from there was sort
(06:03):
of icing on the cake. Whenwe prefer dealing with sheep, we love
animals. The sheep are probably oursort of favorite to work with, and
on an environmental environmental perspective as well, just being smaller animals, they doing
damage to the soils because they're lighterthe urine patches are a lot more spread
(06:24):
out obviously here there's a lot lessconcentration in one area. And yeah,
so that's another really big positive forus, and yeah, all of us.
They get to detect a lot ofour boxes. And we thought that
we could really do it in away that we could focus on the sustainability
(06:45):
side of it, but also animalwelfare sites with us here, like we
leave all of our lambs on mumand they have that natural connection and then
they get to a suitable ageable winningin a suitable way in their waned And
yeah, so it was basically reallyinterested us for a start from the nutrition,
and then as we looked into theborder more holistic benefits, we just
(07:09):
really got excited about the concept ofsheep milking. Oh you mentioned excuse me,
you mentioned about the lambs there,how they stay on, ma'am.
That's really that's a really interesting andquite a cool thing to highlight, I
think, because obviously you're not havingdebt separation, but also I presume you
don't have wastage, Like do youtake those lambs on and finish them like
(07:31):
a normal farming operation. Yeah,yeah, definitely, And it's like the
whole. Yeah, we don't wantany life wasted. Basically, we don't
want wastage. We don't want theproduction of a lamb just to be a
byproduct. So yeah, everything onfine, and our system is valuable.
So our lambs or stale mom fora minimum of forty days, it must
(07:55):
have been a minimum affording kilos fortheir wing and yeah, they just went
on to pasture. They'll go ona lot of them will be but get
for breeding replacements and then what whatcan't be kept, Yeah, we'll either
be sold, store off and itwill end up in the in the meat
food chain. So yeah, sothere's no way snow light pelling at birth
(08:18):
or anything like that. Everything isvaluable and yeah, and that's a big
focus as well. We're trying tomake the whole system as efficient but also
economic and all wealthy're friendly as possibleand yeah, and so with that as
well, like we found winning asort of forty to fifty days really helps
(08:41):
protect the US from getting any otherdamage. As the lamps older, they
do start to get quite nasty bitelike bite teeth and things like that,
and it actually can lead to blackmess sides and things like that, which
is which is really nasty and moreor less can kill the Yeah, we're
(09:01):
finding a really nice happy medium andyeah, getting back to the point that
there is no wasted really within thesystem. Awesome. And what breed of
shape do you use? I mean, do you have to have a special
milking shape or are you just milkingyou know, your normal romney? Yeah
you out there. Yeah, No, it's definitely a special breed. Most
(09:24):
of genetics have originated hours from Europesort of area, so we're predominantly lacurn
and Eese Fresian cross. We havea little bit of a Niche circulating in
there and a little bit of awart which is rarely breed. But yeah,
we're predominantlys breeding, trying to getat least fifty percent in a mixture
(09:48):
of East region and the other geneticsin there. But yeah, we're not
only one specific breed, but justtrying to mix and find the shape.
Basically, sleep the check their pawnb the outdoor system once they're milking.
And we're doing all of our ownbreeding ourselves and any of our breeding program,
which has been really satis find tosee where we started work because we
(10:11):
were very first started we were withthe Coup worth sort of crosses, which
yes, significantly less milk production.And now where we are with about thirteen
hundred years that are predominantly a rasiand lacoon crosses, which has been quite
a journey but really satisfying one.So you're milking thirteen hundred years daily,
(10:35):
so we melt year rounds. Wesort of have a split flock between autumn
and springtime. Okay, and howdid you go about building your genetics that?
Obviously, now you have your ownbreeding program and as time goes by,
it's like anything, you can breedyour own genetics and keep replacements and
things like that. But when youstarted out, how did you go about
bringing and getting the genetics that youneeded? Because I imagine that there's not
(10:58):
heaps of great sheep milking sheep floatingaround New Zealand. Yeah, certainly,
like we were first looking like there'slimited options. We did basically try and
get into some of the ones thatwere already here, so like King's Meat,
their own dairy meat breed, Sowe started with a few of them
(11:18):
for a base, and then afew different people had boarded light seamen and
embryos and things like that which werelacking up to be able to like to
fight the sheet from them. Andthen basically I had a nuclear flock where
a lot of genetics was all originatedfrom overseas, which we've been able to
slowly build up and select, selectthe used on well, which one is
(11:41):
coping well, and our New Zealandsystem because basically overseas they're all in indoor
sort of systems, and we've beenreally surprised I actually have handled outdoor system
really well. So we're selecting forobviously milk production, letdown take placement,
but black body composition, the motherability. So all of our top viewers
(12:05):
that we're sleeping from will go aroundand just assess and give them a number
out of ten basically how good theyare at mothering and yeah, feet and
yeah it's basically I'm temperament as well. So we've got I guess the multitude
of things we're assessing in over time, we've been selecting on and breeding specificateful
(12:26):
notes those lines of sheep. Soif we go back away back ken,
when did it all start and howI mean you've kind of talked a little
bit about how you got the whyyou were interested in sheep milk, but
how did you actually come up withthe idea, Like, at what point
did you think I'm going to trysome sheep milk, Well, I'm going
to look into sheep milk, becauseyou obviously had some sort of light bulb
(12:48):
moment at some point where you thought, yeah, I'm going to look into
this seriously as a business as opposedto just thinking about it. Yeah.
Yeah, that was our on mylast year of high school at the end
of twenty fifteen. Yeah, Ihad never ever considered milking sheep or the
(13:09):
milk from a sheep ever before.But there was just a little article and
a it was just in a paperor a magazine that day, had cut
out and just showed it to me, and I had very little information.
Was just saying that at the timesheep milk was selling for around eighteen dollars
a cage and milk solid and yeah. Other than that, didn't really have
much detail at all. And atthe time I think that the cowdairy payer
(13:33):
was around six dollars fifty and yeah, it just I guess the whole concept
of sheep milking was new to me. I was like, oh, do
you even know anyone was doing that? And why more people not doing that?
If it really is returning eighteen dollarsa cage and milk solid. So
that was sort of the starting point. I guess I just started jumped on
(13:56):
Google and just looked into it alittle bit. And yeah, as I
sort of mentioned earlier, really intonutrition and spot and us to looking into
and seeing all these health benefits andenvironmental benefits and uh, yeah, the
advantages of the easy digestion. Itjust really started to I guess put my
(14:16):
ears up and I was steering itwith the family at the time and information
around it, and yeah, Iguess that was the starting point really to
the idea, and we just startedget a bit more invested into it,
and I thought that it would reallyfit with help quite well. We're always
quite interested in trying to control ourdesting a little bit more and instead of
(14:39):
just being a supplier and yeah,taking whatever the spot price was at the
time. And yeah, so itwas a multitude of uh of events I
guess which which caused us doing allreasons. But yeah, that was the
that was the starting point. Soobviously you were, yeah, teenagers still
(15:03):
at this point, and I showyour parents were at home farming the farm.
Yeah, I'm sure that it probablyrequired quite significant infrastructure investment. You
would need to have a sheet tomilk them. I guess. Yep,
how did you actually convince your parentsthis was a good idea? Yeah,
(15:26):
have an overnight I think. Yeah, Man, Day have always been open
to try new things in those sortof stage in the farming careers. We're
doing really well like that on farmproduction was really good, the landing percentages
were really high, the vivability wasreally high. That the ability to increase
(15:50):
profitability was really small margins like liketrying to slightly increase landing percentage and things
like that. But yeah, sothey were really good farmers and basically this
was something knew that I thought,well, this could add a lot about
you. We were interested in it, like children were interested in it.
So I guess that was a drivingforce. So there's another way of potentially
(16:15):
like success and getting people into intothe farm and involved with the farming business.
But yeah, it didn't happen overnight. It was just yeah, I
guess. So over a year wewere constantly sort of floating around here with
the idea, looking into it more, looking into the viability. What would
the profitability look like? How didit actually work? And then yeah,
(16:40):
I guess we just started. Wedecided to stop talking about it and to
do something about it, and actually, let's have a crack awesome. Can
you tell me a little bit aboutthe farm itself, like whereabouts you guys
are located, and what the farmitself is like, you know contours,
because you're right by the sea,aren't I've been to your farm. I
came and wrote a story about youguys. You probably remember, and I
(17:03):
can see. I'm pretty sure Isit in the room that you're in right
now. When I was in youguys, this was when you were just
starting out, so you've obviously comea long way since then. But just
for our listeners, can you painta bit of a picture of what the
fans like. Yeah, we arefifty minutes east of Masses and so yeah,
(17:26):
in the middle of now we're basicallywe're close to Riversdale Beach in a
really nice location as far as viewsand things. They're quite lucky that we
can go down to the sea andcatch the fish and go into the hills
and go hunting, so that's partof It's very lucky for us. So
we've got eleven and fifty years roughlyof old farmland basically half that and native
(17:48):
bush and pints, and then wego with some really steep, arge light
hill country that is quite low producinginto some rolling hills and tears. And
then our milking platform is basically sixtyhectares of strong flat land sort of still
lone flat land, and that's wherethe milking platforms. And we still have
(18:11):
hill country used on the hills,and we have a ball component and also
a cow herd as well. Okay, so the sheep milking isn't the sole
the sole business, but with otherelements of the farming operation, Yeah,
(18:32):
definitely, and it is starting tobecome a lot more of the major piece
to the to the whole the wholebusiness. But yeah, we still have,
yes, certainly, got other elementsand that's what as a business as
well, we're trying to be havenot all about ease of my basket and
be diversified. So that was anotherreason why the sheep milking side of it
(18:55):
looked good in case meat prices weren'tgood, wall prices obviously contributing much to
the bottom line. So yeah,so we are. It was another way
of looking at diversifying and future breafand business. And I think there's three
of you children, aren't there.Yeah. Yeah, so I'm the youngest.
(19:22):
Yeah, my sister's middle middle child, and then my brother. So
brothers four years older than me,So this is basically three years older than
me. And so are you allinvolved in the business. Yes. Yeah.
My brother's very hands on with thebrand side on within the factory and
(19:44):
that side of it logistics, gettingout product at the customers. My sister
sort of floats between the two shohelps within the factory as well and also
on the farm. And then yeah, I'm sort of sort of the same
very wrong passion for farming, butalso really involved with the branding, marketing,
(20:07):
and factory side of it as well. And then yeah, mums involved
and Dad basically full time on afarmer as well, introducing the sheep milking
business. You've talked about diversifying,and I think it's a thing that many
farmers think about when they want tocreate opportunities for the next generation. Is
it something that has allowed all threeof you to come home and be involved
(20:33):
or would you have all been ableto be involved if you hadn't created something
like this. Yeah, I meanit too has allowed us to come home
and I'll be involved within the farmingbusiness. My brother's probably not. You're
not only interested in being a farmor anything like that, but as passionate
(20:55):
about us on farming and creating goodproducts. But seems like it's really created
given him the opportunity to stay involvedwith the business and have the opportunity,
and yeah, otherwise, I thinkit would have been more difficult to get
everyone involved just I was. Withfarming. It's not always the lowest cash
(21:18):
cash positive business is generally very assetrich and cash for so that it has
allowed, yeah, to increase ourcash flow, and yeah, give us
all the opportunity, I guess tobe working with some of the business which
we probably wouldn't have been able todo otherwise. Nice. Okay, can
(21:40):
you talk me through a day inthe life of a sheep on your farm?
How does it work with the milking? You know, like do that
are they like cows? Do youmilk twice a day? Or you know?
How often do they come through thesheet? And how much milk does
a sheep produce on average each day? Yeah? At day in the life
(22:00):
luxurious living Bob to see Greape views. Yeah, but so we just milk
once a day in the morning,they'll get milked around sixteen six thirty.
Heading into winter, deck gets pushedback, so we're not milking in the
dark, So seven thirty aim atthe moment. And yeah, so they'll
(22:25):
just come in once a day,milked and shed. They get fed around
two hundred hundred and fifty grams ofbarley and it's i just as a way
of enticing them in there, butalso be as a way of increasing there,
like the meeting the energy cuirements toproduce milk and keep keep them healthy
(22:45):
and keep fat on the back sortof thing. And from there they are
just one hundred percent part of fed. So they'll generally get like daily shifts
if fed predominantly on red clover plantain. That's what we find really produces the
best milk with set. They're notlike a cow. You couldn't have them
(23:07):
on on rye grass like you justyou just can't get the same performance out
of them. And yeah, andso that's basically their data is coming once
a day and then they're sifted andit's them for the for the day.
We haven't got any irrigation or anythinglike that. But in the summer we
will feed the fire crops. Sowe're finding turnips works really well. They
(23:32):
love it. They milk really welloff, but there's no milk tain.
That's when red clover and plantains theymight do four hours on the earning,
spend the night on the on thepasture, and as far as milk production
goes, they're doing. I guessthis is the area where the gains are
(23:53):
really quick and signs still when it'sinfancy. So we started off and the
average production per year per milking seasonor milking period, which is around two
hundred days, it was about onehundred and fifty liters and this year we
should be pretty close to three hundredliters or about eighty two ninety overseas,
(24:17):
then a sort of turner in twentyday milking period and a bar they're getting
six hundred liters plus average, sothey're quite a bit ahead, but also
have a really high intensive cost structure. So we're really hopefully aiming within the
next five years to get average aroundthree fifty four hundred and that's a really
(24:37):
nice sweet spot. And yeah,especially from an economic perspective as well.
So still still we're way to go, but we've got some of our top
years doing well over that now,so we know the potential is there,
just yeah, making sure the geneticsand and our feeding for them is up
to par. Yeah. Well that'sa huge gain from when you started to
(25:00):
now, and I mean that's amazing, and obviously, like you said,
there is still so much potential,so there's there's a lot of room there
to make even further gains, sothat I imagine it would probably get will
tend to get quite summer dry whereyou are, or it could be progn
to. So I guess your wayof mitigating that is your foto crops that
you've just spoken about, Yes,exactly. So do you hands on actually
(25:23):
getting the shed and put like doyou put cups on the shape or how
does it work? Yeah? Yeah, I do try and get them at
least once or twice a week basicallyjust so that I can well keep in
touch with more production, keep intouch with hell. But they're looking the
user, looking whether they're like gettingshitty or something like that, so that
(25:47):
we can manage that appropriately either withthe way that we're feeding them, trying
to feed them something that's got morecarb and trying to basically firm up with
their poo and yeah, from thatside of it, but also just basically
making sure that the plant hygiene init as it should be. But I'm
not in the every day because Ido go into the factory to do that
(26:12):
side of it in the processing.So we've got a really cool team that
like there here our hitship is andthen we've got about three ladies that do
a lot of our milking, soyeah, we sort of make a match
between them and I do try andget on fire as much as they can,
(26:33):
but because have a huge passion forit. But you have been running
that factory side of it, Idon't. Yeah, my weeks can be
very as far as like how manydays a week of one farm or not?
Yeah, okay, yeah, no, that's that's cool that you have
that variety really and great that you'veobviously been able to provide employment opportunities for
(26:53):
other local people because you guys arequite remote and quite nice laded out there
where you are. I say thatyou guys were the first dairy farm to
get their SPCA Animal Wealthier certification,which is fantastic. So what does that
actually mean and what was the processto get certified? Yeah? That was
(27:18):
Yeah, that's been something we're reallyproud of. From the get go.
We really wanted to great a brandthat people, even population we don't know
too much about farmer can look atit and be proud of it. And
also we hope to try and breakdown some of the misconceptions of farmers in
the way they treat animals, becauseI'd say ninety nine point nine percent of
(27:42):
farmers are really big animal lovers andthat's why they're doing what they're doing.
So getting that Animal out certification waswas it a way that we hope to
try and connect with consumers and makethem think a little bit about how their
food is produced and from an animalwealth fair perspective, and maybe to start
(28:06):
asking questions. There's still a lotof products that are am boarded into New
Zealand that have significantly lower animal healthystandards and what New Zealanders here, And
yes, part of it we justwant to stake getting raiz peals awas and
making people start thinking about how thefood is produced. And so the whole
(28:26):
certification process basically look at your wholefarming business from like on farm, but
also your your business planning, Sowhat are you going to do and droughts,
What what feed management plans do youhave in place if you're yeah,
if you do have a drought orif you're a really wet winter, are
you going to fill ensure that youcan maintain your us health? And then
(28:53):
it's like looks at fence and makingsure that the quality of water. We're
going to test the water quality andthings like that, So just making sure
from a holistic perspective, the animalslooked after to a really rest standard,
Like there's exposure to stress as aminimal. If there's any animals that are
(29:15):
getting stick around house, they're treatedstraight away or preferably they're prevented from getting
to that stage. So what sortof preventative actions are you doing? And
then things like shade and shelter.So one reason why I really love this
farm and mom and dad has donea really good job is they've always had
(29:36):
a focus on planting trees for shadeand shelter, and that's a big thing
they look at as there to theanimals have access to shade and shelter in
each paddock. And yeah, andour farm's got just treated everywhere and it's
really cool and it's something really coolthat we've seen on that is that like
fish in summer, our best shadedpadducts are always our paddocks that produced the
(30:00):
most milk. So it goes toshow that not only does it help them
from an animal wealthier perspective, butthere's also productivity gain from looking after them
well. So they're obviously not burninga whole lot of energy just trying to
keep cool. So it's really fair. It'sfying to see. Yeah, and
then so we get ordered to twicea year basically every six months. There's
(30:23):
one sort of standard order and thenone just random order where they just turn
up basically and they look through checkwater, check the us like ours,
making sure they're healthy, and walkthrough the through the flock chip based away.
Yeah, they basically do a fullfum check, check the shed,
(30:44):
make sure that there's nothing I guessalarming, like anything that animals could injure
themselves on. So yeah, theybasically look for everything from a hellistic perspective
and just trying to raise the standardsbasically of the way that you're doing for
the animals. Fantastic, Well,congratulations on having that certification. I think
(31:06):
that's really great to hear of farmersdoing things like that. I'd love to
now move to a slightly different areaof the business because it's obviously one thing
to be good at farming and beable to produce lots of milk and have
a really high standard on farm,but it's quite another to also have your
whole supply chain, you know,to be creating your own brand, product
(31:29):
development, all that sort of thing, which you guys do as well,
which is husually impressive. So I'dlove to know a little bit more about
how you've developed your products. Imean, you only need to give away
any trade secrets or anything. I'mnot going to start shape milking here,
but I'd just love to know whatkind of processes you guys had to go
through to get a product from,you know, a state of coming from
(31:51):
the shape to actually being on ashelf. Yeah, we were probably quite
naive I think starting out with howmuch work it was. Yeah, and
it's like now basically we were neverdairy farmers, and we've learned how a
dairy farm. So we've basically savedthree companies. We've seen We've started a
dairy farming company, a processing company, and then also a marketing company more
(32:14):
or less. I mean that's that'sthat's the points with on the supply chain
that we're controlling. So yeah,of course we probably didn't realize how much
the job it was. So it'sjust been a giant learning process ready for
us, and it's been. Itwasn't exactly a blueprint, just a matter
of reaching out, asking a lotof questions too different people, and I
(32:38):
guess building the path as you went. So we started off with flavored milk
which we developed at Mess Universities.We worked with them to develop the product
and then we were uh and westill don't work with Kingsmaid Cheese and we
operate out of the same processing facilities. Yeah, so that was the port
(33:01):
development at Mass and then started gettingthe infrastructure that we needed within the factory
in town, and then the brandside of it, like that was always
something I was passionate about, liketrying to start something up and be running
your own business. And university didhave a bit with that, like my
(33:24):
degree in Masters was in global adbusiness and food marketing. But it's as
I've learned and theories great, butactual experiences is quite another thing. And
yeah, watching a textbookers is alwaysvery logical and very easy what's what's not
(33:45):
in the textbookers the fact that thatyou're dealing with people on the other end
of that and they can always welloften be quite tricky or be straightforward and
then stepped down in the textbox.So that's been something that we've learned as
well. Yeah, we just basicallyflowly found our feet from the product development
(34:07):
side, started like trading social mediasand things like that, web site,
building the branding side of it upas well as building up the genetics and
supply side at the same time thatit's been, yeah, a bit of
a juggling act, but something thatwe've yeah, a real learning process and
(34:29):
it has just been one problem solving, one problem to solve after the other
basically, and it's just how welook at it. So what do you
think is the biggest thing that you'velearned along the way? Or there might
be multiple things about starting a businesslike this from scratch an industry or a
part of the industry. I mean, it's obviously part of agriculture, but
(34:51):
it's quite niche. There's not alot, like you said, there's not
a lot of blueprint to do whatyou've done. Yeah, I think but
one of the biggest things that I'velearned is is there anything in life if
you can get excited by solving problems, then you're going to do pretty well
because there's just going to be actuallyone problem or one, yeah, one
(35:15):
problem after the other. Not thatit's like looking on it from a needive
perspective. It's just problem solving.You've got something that that pops up,
like whether you need to learn howto do to do your own processing or
what equipment do that's a piece ofthe puzzle that you need to solve regulatory
standards like learning how to do it, and I think it is. Yeah,
(35:37):
big thing is it's just learning justjust do it. As far as
you can't always get other people doit, and if you do get other
people that it's going to be quiteexpensive. And so if you can learn
to do it yourself and just toroll your sleeves up and just attack it,
I think you're actually doing really wellfrom it, and you'll learn a
(35:59):
lot more than just hiring someone elseto do it and solve your issues for
you. I mean, there's obviouslyit's going to be some things that are
outsourced, but it's trying to pickthose battles and and like knowing your own
skill set and when you look ata problem that is there is the something
you can solve, the something youcan learn, and its attack it and
(36:22):
just go for it, because there'snothing like learning by doing, especially for
me, Like that's why I learned. Yeah, so that's an ey big
thing. And also like just makingsure that you understand but the why,
I think is really important. Yeah, because it's not always going to be
a planned it's going to be someyeah, very long days. As long
(36:45):
as you know the why, it'sa lot easier to keep going and keep
wanting to solve those problems. SoI think that's a really key thing to
identify. Okay, so what asyour wife? Then? Uh yeah,
I got multiple but a big oneis around that trying trying to break down
(37:12):
some misconceptions between but yeah, butfarming as the background in New Zealand,
you know, I just want tobe able to share a good story to
help get more people on the sideof farmers and just make down some of
those bears between actually where does myfood come from? How they're producer and
hopefully start to raise some of thosequestions with consumers him thinking about it,
(37:38):
them thinking about like our products,this is like New Zealand products, this
other ones that they can buy intomarkets or all the way that food is
actually produced or I mean like otherones. There's a lot of plant milk
or plant milk that are out there. Are they actually sustainable or is it
green washing? And just like justtrying to be a little bit more critical
(38:00):
out those purchases and the beliefs thatthey have. Other side is, yeah,
I'd love to be able to basicallyget our farming business, yes to
a stage where mum and Dad cansort of step back a bit more.
(38:20):
They hopefully aning a bit more moneyso can afford to employ more people and
enjoy life a bit more because obviouslyfarming can be quite a twenty four to
seven arrangement. Yeah, that's anothermotivation. It's just trying to do something
that adds more be ableity to ourfamily business and hopefully freeing up a bit
(38:42):
of a bit of time for yourground basically. Yeah. And then and
there's a yeah, I guess awhole lot of other internal sort of motivation
just around we believe steep market.There's a raw product that's really good.
There's to be something that New Zealandershave access to and hopefully export as well.
Because it is good for the environment, it is good for people.
(39:05):
It's a great out to and lookfor people who don't tolerate camels. But
yeah, it's also another big motivator. I just think that it actually is
a really great option for New Zealandfarming, but also the consumers that consume.
Yeah, yeah, well, thereare plenty of people out there with
intolerances to dary. My husband isone who definitely doesn't agree with him too
(39:30):
much, so I might hope toget him onto some of your sheep milk
if I wanted to find your products. If if someone's listening and they think,
oh, that sounds like a bitof me, I want to go
give this a go. Where canthey find your products? Can you buy
online or watch supermarkets or stores?Are you in Yes, we're mostly in
the North Island. We have studieddown for a few stores in the announcment
(39:53):
area, but we're predominantly in NewRod's pack and Staves and then whole foods
more Wilson Sparrows will be and thenthere's individually owned whole food stores as well,
so they can be found. We'vegot a store located on our website,
which has been going farm dot co, do on m Z and otherwise
(40:17):
that we can do directs but directlysell to people, but it has to
be delivered to business addresses, justbeen the nature of a chill product.
The Chill Careers will only do businessdelivery and they weren't do residential yet.
Yes, at the moment, it'ssort of the areas that we're in.
(40:39):
We're in most of them my mainregions with from the North Island and still
slowly growing our store numbers and reach. Yeah, that sounds like that's a
challenge for you or something for youto I can imagine that'll be on your
agenda in terms of how you cangrow there or how you can find to
(41:00):
be able to do those child salesdirect to people through a website or something
like that. And you seem likeyou have problem solved most other things along
the way, so I'm sure thatyou'll correct that one time too. We
will put the website in all yoursocial media handles in our show notes as
well, so if anyone is keen, they'll be able to just jump on
(41:22):
there and have a look. Ithink again, like most of the people
I have on this podcast, Ifeel like we could keep talking for a
long time. However, we arerunning out of time. I'd love to
just ask a final question before weget into the five fast facts, and
that is what advice would you giveif you were looking at yourself, you
know, in your final year athigh school and looking back on it,
(41:46):
what advice would you give to otheryoung people that are not necessarily interested in
sheet milking? But if you've gotan idea or a business that you want
to give a go, what wouldyou say, day so, eighteen year
old Cam. Now, Yeah,it's a hard one. I think one
(42:08):
of the key things, like Imean, in my opinion, I think
if you want to go out andmake money, it's really easy to do.
In my opinion, if you ifyou solely just want to go out
and make money, is businesses thatyou can create that might not really motivate
you or you might not be thatmotivated by apart from making money, And
(42:29):
I think seeing those things up isactually relatively easy. What is hard,
I think is setting up a businessthat you're really passionate about for reasons like
the environment and like nutrition, andyou're really trying to build something that you
really want to believe, oh thatyou really believe in it and you want
to see change or make change inBut we're trying to I guess, help
(42:52):
or hopefully help make change within theagricultural industry. So I think if there's
something that you're really passionate about,it's certainly worth pursuing. And I guess
quite that I only forget there's nothingventured, nothing gain. I think when
we're starting out a big one,Yeah, you've got nothing to lose.
(43:15):
If you wanted to go out andmake money, I think there's either way
to do that. But if youwant to go out and try and make
a genuine change, it may ormay not work out, but yeah,
nothing they do, nothing gain,and if it does work out, it's
going to have a lot more satisfyingthan just doing a nine to five or
Yeah cool, I like that,that's really cool. Yeah, there's a
(43:38):
difference between creating a business that mighthave a really good bottom line, but
if you want to have all theother stuff as well, which I can
see quite clearly from your website inthe way that you've spoken today that you
guys are really patient about telling theright story or a story that is going
to break down those barriers or seenthe right message about farming, which is
(44:00):
not as easy necessarily as easy todo, or it takes more care and
attention. So I love that thatadvice. I think that's really it's really
solid. So just to finish now, we'll go on to our five fast
facts. The first one, camis what is one app that you need
(44:22):
to run your business? Yeah,we use a lot of meta business so
that covers off like Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, so that combines a whole
lot, and we run and appliedto black people's messages and things like that
through this. So that's one thatwe're using heaps. Yeah, it is
(44:44):
a good one for kind of coordinatingall of that stuff to get that it's
a real time saver. Yeah.What is the best advice you've ever received?
I think you probably just have togo that quote nothing you did,
nothing gained. I think kay forme, that that's put me of Yeah,
(45:07):
why not buy something you can?You can certainly go through life not
try anything, but what you're goingto gain out of it I think is
going to be Yeah, hell ofa lot. Least I did wonder if
you might go back to that quiteit's a good one. Okay. Number
three, a business or a personin business who you look up to and
(45:28):
why Yeah, I think for thoselike my parents certainly have done a pretty
good job. So you always feelthat we look back to I mean,
we're obviously involved with him with thebusiness, so when we look up to
him and they've got a lot ofbusiness now, they've successfully build up there
their farming business. So the mostregular ones that that I do ideas often
(45:53):
yeah, awesome, Okay, ifyou could change one thing, and this
could be in business, or itcould be in life, could be anything.
It doesn't help to necessarily be inrelationship sheep milking. If you could
change one thing, what would itbe. Yeah, I think the ability
(46:15):
to if I could change, Ithink it would be around it. Like
the way that businesses or big entitiesaround the world can push agendas are quite
fast. I just look at thingsaround farming and it were always really frustrating
about how farming, fishing, NewZealand farmers get put down. There's the
(46:38):
reason for climate change and things likethat or global warming, and I just
think that's largely from big powerful peoplethat have a lot of money behind them
using us as the escape go becausefrom a common sense level, it really
doesn't make sense. But it doesn'tjust happen from farming too. I think
there's other things, but nutrition wise, like how that was all of a
(47:00):
sudden the big devil a while agoand now it's actually seen it's been a
really important part of the diet,and it's all. Yeah, I think
that's people were in a bit morehonestly at the high level and not pushing
their energy like that. That wouldjust create a pretty cool world to live.
And I think, yeah, yeah, you're right. The key messages
(47:22):
that come out around things like thatare often perpetrator or I able to be
pushed by those people that perhaps havemoney to do so, or to spend
your marketing campaigns or you know.So I understand where you're coming from with
that one. Finally, and veryimportantly, it does pineapple belong on a
(47:44):
pizza? Yes? From me?Yeah, I love a bit of pineapple
on a pizza. Very good.We're going to see a pineapple flavored sheep
milk at any stage? Yeah,I'm not sure about that one, but
yeah we could. We could possiblyput something on the work, but I'd
(48:04):
have to do some research and thereI think I can't I don't know if
I can imagine pineapple milk, butstranger things have happened, yim. Thank
you, thank you so much foryour time. I really love having a
chat with you and learning a bitmore about your business and how you've built
it up and how you've got whereyou are all the best with everything and
(48:25):
we look forward to seeing where youguys go next. Awesome. Thanks very
much for haming me. You've justbeen listening to cam raving with there from
friendli and fans. I think whatthey're doing there is really interesting. They
(48:47):
already had a very strong, profitablefarming business, or his parents did,
and they've looked at ways that theycan value it there, which is what
the sheep milking brings to the business. It really struck me how they're such
a tight family unit and how everyonein the family is involved in the business
and works together. So from theirparents through to his two siblings all have
(49:09):
a role in some way in thebusiness, which allows the farm business to
give an opportunity for all family membersto be involved, which is fantastic.
I also really thought it was interestingwhat he said about hear in his opinion,
it's pretty easy to make money businesswhat isn't so easy is setting up
a business that you're really passionate aboutfor reasons that include sustainability, the environment,
(49:36):
aligning with all of their values,things like having their certification, these
PCA animal welfare certification, and reallylooking at how the business can be sustainable
in terms of looking after the soils, looking after the animals, but also
being profitable. So it's not soeasy to have a profitable business that encompasses
(49:59):
all of those things. And Ithink that's where he was saying that that's
where the real challenge lies. Sonothing ventured, nothing gained, and nothing
to lose by trying to make genuinechange. So I hope you enjoyed that
episode with cam Ravenwood from Fern glenkFarms and turn in next time for another
episode of From the ground Up.
Welcome to down to Earth, broughtto you by a Young Country. This
is the podcast for the go getters, the big dreamers, the innovators of
the primary sector. I'm your host, Rebecca Greeves, and we're taking a
closer look at young people in theprimary industries who have dared to think big,
pushed the limits and give it ago in business. We'll be asking
(00:30):
how they got to where they arenow and what they've learned along the way,
and what their advice is to otheraspiring Eggrey innovators. So sell in
and listen up as we serve youa healthy dose of inspiration, motivation and
maybe even challenge your thinking a little. Welcome into season two of down to
(00:52):
Earth, formerly known as From theGround Up. There may be a slight
name change, but the content remainsthe same, exceptional innovators in the primary
sector sharing their stories with us,so be prepared to dive in. Thanks
to the continued support of Ensie farmLife Media. Without you, this podcast
would not be possible. On theeast coast of the North Island, there
(01:17):
is a farm producing a range ofproducts made from sheep's milk. Ferng Glen
Farm is an intergenerational business with afocus on sustainability amongst other things. And
I'm really excited to be joined todayby Cam Raven Moodor do you like Cam
or Cameron? Is it Caim isgood for me? Yeah? Okay,
(01:38):
cool, Cam from fern Gland Farmsis joining us today and we're going to
have a real chat about the worldof sheep milking and what they're up to
there at Fernland. So I'm reallylooking forward to this. And yeah,
welcome to the From the ground UpPodcast. Yeah. No, it's a
pleasure to be here. It's alwaysexciting to talk about sheep milking and hopefully
(02:00):
a few more people about it andthe benefits and whatnot. Fantastic. Okay,
Well, on that note, canyou tell me what you guys actually
do at for Englyn Vam, Like, what's your elevator? Pitch in a
nutshell? You know what? Whatare you producing? And yeah, what
is it all about? Yeah?So we're pasta to pasture to product production,
(02:23):
family owned business producing sheep milk intohigh quality sheet milk products. We've
started off with a pre viouic flavoredmilk drink and then moved into just a
natural play drink, plain milk wholemilk, and now we're also starting to
look more at valu adding it andso we've just launched a yoga and we're
(02:46):
looking at other options as well aroundcheese and gelato and in a few other
Yeah, there's obviously the many productsyou can make with dairy, which is
really cool, and we're just startingto explore some of those more shaft stable
products and basically like what we're targetingor what which on do sheets a really
good alternative for people who can't drinkow milks. So it really feels the
(03:08):
needs, which is something that thatpeople finding more and more that that cowdery
is upsetting their tummies. So we'rejust trying to have basically an animal alternative
that that fits that need instead ofsome of these plant juices that are out
there that may not actually have thesame nutritional quality. So we're just yeah,
(03:31):
we're from a nutritional perspective, we'rethinking it's a really good product and
help those people who can't actually getother types of dairy into their diet.
So, yeah, I noticed howyou said plant juice there, not plant
milk. I like that. Sowhat is what is so good about sheep
(03:51):
milk? Sell me? On thebenefits. Yeah, so we really fell
in love with sheet more basically fromI've got a really, uh really passion
about nutrition, so is my brother, and that's what really got us interested
for a start. When we firstlook looked into it was basically has two
(04:12):
percent more protein and calcium, aboutforty percent high magnesium high and pilate,
phosphorus basically most of micro nutrients.So immediately that sort of started the dall
make us wonder why it's not available, not a milk to be drunk,
especially from an ethlete perspective for highprotein levels, and then like looking at
(04:35):
the protein breakdown isolate busing in valenI hope I've got those right there,
the three most important amano acids forbasically muscle recovery, and they're found in
sheep milk more than double watson cow'smilk. And so yeah, it's just
like starting to look into it froman intuitional perspective and it really excited us.
(04:59):
And then we looked down the digestibility. I mean, it's still have
been worked done on it, butthe sheet mink is supposed to be digested
in around forty five minutes, soit's really quick to be absorbed into the
body. The bioavailability of nutrients isas strong as good. It's like at
the right levels for the body toabsorb them. Which yet looking at from
(05:19):
like a training perspective, after ahard training or hard game, it's almost
perfect because replenishing what you've used quicklyand so there was a big thing and
then like that's from a spoiling perspective, but also the quick digestibility that also
helps those people who are intolerant tocow's milk. It's just easier on the
(05:40):
tummy, which has been really encouraging. We've found people that have been off
Calgary for twenty odd years and havestarted using our sheet milk and have had
no issues. Yeah, it's reallycool to be able to offer a really
nutritious product that people haven't been ableto have, but now I can start
introducing it back into their diet.And then yeah, from there was sort
(06:03):
of icing on the cake. Whenwe prefer dealing with sheep, we love
animals. The sheep are probably oursort of favorite to work with, and
on an environmental environmental perspective as well, just being smaller animals, they doing
damage to the soils because they're lighterthe urine patches are a lot more spread
(06:24):
out obviously here there's a lot lessconcentration in one area. And yeah,
so that's another really big positive forus, and yeah, all of us.
They get to detect a lot ofour boxes. And we thought that
we could really do it in away that we could focus on the sustainability
(06:45):
side of it, but also animalwelfare sites with us here, like we
leave all of our lambs on mumand they have that natural connection and then
they get to a suitable ageable winningin a suitable way in their waned And
yeah, so it was basically reallyinterested us for a start from the nutrition,
and then as we looked into theborder more holistic benefits, we just
(07:09):
really got excited about the concept ofsheep milking. Oh you mentioned excuse me,
you mentioned about the lambs there,how they stay on, ma'am.
That's really that's a really interesting andquite a cool thing to highlight, I
think, because obviously you're not havingdebt separation, but also I presume you
don't have wastage, Like do youtake those lambs on and finish them like
(07:31):
a normal farming operation. Yeah,yeah, definitely, And it's like the
whole. Yeah, we don't wantany life wasted. Basically, we don't
want wastage. We don't want theproduction of a lamb just to be a
byproduct. So yeah, everything onfine, and our system is valuable.
So our lambs or stale mom fora minimum of forty days, it must
(07:55):
have been a minimum affording kilos fortheir wing and yeah, they just went
on to pasture. They'll go ona lot of them will be but get
for breeding replacements and then what whatcan't be kept, Yeah, we'll either
be sold, store off and itwill end up in the in the meat
food chain. So yeah, sothere's no way snow light pelling at birth
(08:18):
or anything like that. Everything isvaluable and yeah, and that's a big
focus as well. We're trying tomake the whole system as efficient but also
economic and all wealthy're friendly as possibleand yeah, and so with that as
well, like we found winning asort of forty to fifty days really helps
(08:41):
protect the US from getting any otherdamage. As the lamps older, they
do start to get quite nasty bitelike bite teeth and things like that,
and it actually can lead to blackmess sides and things like that, which
is which is really nasty and moreor less can kill the Yeah, we're
(09:01):
finding a really nice happy medium andyeah, getting back to the point that
there is no wasted really within thesystem. Awesome. And what breed of
shape do you use? I mean, do you have to have a special
milking shape or are you just milkingyou know, your normal romney? Yeah
you out there. Yeah, No, it's definitely a special breed. Most
(09:24):
of genetics have originated hours from Europesort of area, so we're predominantly lacurn
and Eese Fresian cross. We havea little bit of a Niche circulating in
there and a little bit of awart which is rarely breed. But yeah,
we're predominantlys breeding, trying to getat least fifty percent in a mixture
(09:48):
of East region and the other geneticsin there. But yeah, we're not
only one specific breed, but justtrying to mix and find the shape.
Basically, sleep the check their pawnb the outdoor system once they're milking.
And we're doing all of our ownbreeding ourselves and any of our breeding program,
which has been really satis find tosee where we started work because we
(10:11):
were very first started we were withthe Coup worth sort of crosses, which
yes, significantly less milk production.And now where we are with about thirteen
hundred years that are predominantly a rasiand lacoon crosses, which has been quite
a journey but really satisfying one.So you're milking thirteen hundred years daily,
(10:35):
so we melt year rounds. Wesort of have a split flock between autumn
and springtime. Okay, and howdid you go about building your genetics that?
Obviously, now you have your ownbreeding program and as time goes by,
it's like anything, you can breedyour own genetics and keep replacements and
things like that. But when youstarted out, how did you go about
bringing and getting the genetics that youneeded? Because I imagine that there's not
(10:58):
heaps of great sheep milking sheep floatingaround New Zealand. Yeah, certainly,
like we were first looking like there'slimited options. We did basically try and
get into some of the ones thatwere already here, so like King's Meat,
their own dairy meat breed, Sowe started with a few of them
(11:18):
for a base, and then afew different people had boarded light seamen and
embryos and things like that which werelacking up to be able to like to
fight the sheet from them. Andthen basically I had a nuclear flock where
a lot of genetics was all originatedfrom overseas, which we've been able to
slowly build up and select, selectthe used on well, which one is
(11:41):
coping well, and our New Zealandsystem because basically overseas they're all in indoor
sort of systems, and we've beenreally surprised I actually have handled outdoor system
really well. So we're selecting forobviously milk production, letdown take placement,
but black body composition, the motherability. So all of our top viewers
(12:05):
that we're sleeping from will go aroundand just assess and give them a number
out of ten basically how good theyare at mothering and yeah, feet and
yeah it's basically I'm temperament as well. So we've got I guess the multitude
of things we're assessing in over time, we've been selecting on and breeding specificateful
(12:26):
notes those lines of sheep. Soif we go back away back ken,
when did it all start and howI mean you've kind of talked a little
bit about how you got the whyyou were interested in sheep milk, but
how did you actually come up withthe idea, Like, at what point
did you think I'm going to trysome sheep milk, Well, I'm going
to look into sheep milk, becauseyou obviously had some sort of light bulb
(12:48):
moment at some point where you thought, yeah, I'm going to look into
this seriously as a business as opposedto just thinking about it. Yeah.
Yeah, that was our on mylast year of high school at the end
of twenty fifteen. Yeah, Ihad never ever considered milking sheep or the
(13:09):
milk from a sheep ever before.But there was just a little article and
a it was just in a paperor a magazine that day, had cut
out and just showed it to me, and I had very little information.
Was just saying that at the timesheep milk was selling for around eighteen dollars
a cage and milk solid and yeah. Other than that, didn't really have
much detail at all. And atthe time I think that the cowdairy payer
(13:33):
was around six dollars fifty and yeah, it just I guess the whole concept
of sheep milking was new to me. I was like, oh, do
you even know anyone was doing that? And why more people not doing that?
If it really is returning eighteen dollarsa cage and milk solid. So
that was sort of the starting point. I guess I just started jumped on
(13:56):
Google and just looked into it alittle bit. And yeah, as I
sort of mentioned earlier, really intonutrition and spot and us to looking into
and seeing all these health benefits andenvironmental benefits and uh, yeah, the
advantages of the easy digestion. Itjust really started to I guess put my
(14:16):
ears up and I was steering itwith the family at the time and information
around it, and yeah, Iguess that was the starting point really to
the idea, and we just startedget a bit more invested into it,
and I thought that it would reallyfit with help quite well. We're always
quite interested in trying to control ourdesting a little bit more and instead of
(14:39):
just being a supplier and yeah,taking whatever the spot price was at the
time. And yeah, so itwas a multitude of uh of events I
guess which which caused us doing allreasons. But yeah, that was the
that was the starting point. Soobviously you were, yeah, teenagers still
(15:03):
at this point, and I showyour parents were at home farming the farm.
Yeah, I'm sure that it probablyrequired quite significant infrastructure investment. You
would need to have a sheet tomilk them. I guess. Yep,
how did you actually convince your parentsthis was a good idea? Yeah,
(15:26):
have an overnight I think. Yeah, Man, Day have always been open
to try new things in those sortof stage in the farming careers. We're
doing really well like that on farmproduction was really good, the landing percentages
were really high, the vivability wasreally high. That the ability to increase
(15:50):
profitability was really small margins like liketrying to slightly increase landing percentage and things
like that. But yeah, sothey were really good farmers and basically this
was something knew that I thought,well, this could add a lot about
you. We were interested in it, like children were interested in it.
So I guess that was a drivingforce. So there's another way of potentially
(16:15):
like success and getting people into intothe farm and involved with the farming business.
But yeah, it didn't happen overnight. It was just yeah, I
guess. So over a year wewere constantly sort of floating around here with
the idea, looking into it more, looking into the viability. What would
the profitability look like? How didit actually work? And then yeah,
(16:40):
I guess we just started. Wedecided to stop talking about it and to
do something about it, and actually, let's have a crack awesome. Can
you tell me a little bit aboutthe farm itself, like whereabouts you guys
are located, and what the farmitself is like, you know contours,
because you're right by the sea,aren't I've been to your farm. I
came and wrote a story about youguys. You probably remember, and I
(17:03):
can see. I'm pretty sure Isit in the room that you're in right
now. When I was in youguys, this was when you were just
starting out, so you've obviously comea long way since then. But just
for our listeners, can you painta bit of a picture of what the
fans like. Yeah, we arefifty minutes east of Masses and so yeah,
(17:26):
in the middle of now we're basicallywe're close to Riversdale Beach in a
really nice location as far as viewsand things. They're quite lucky that we
can go down to the sea andcatch the fish and go into the hills
and go hunting, so that's partof It's very lucky for us. So
we've got eleven and fifty years roughlyof old farmland basically half that and native
(17:48):
bush and pints, and then wego with some really steep, arge light
hill country that is quite low producinginto some rolling hills and tears. And
then our milking platform is basically sixtyhectares of strong flat land sort of still
lone flat land, and that's wherethe milking platforms. And we still have
(18:11):
hill country used on the hills,and we have a ball component and also
a cow herd as well. Okay, so the sheep milking isn't the sole
the sole business, but with otherelements of the farming operation, Yeah,
(18:32):
definitely, and it is starting tobecome a lot more of the major piece
to the to the whole the wholebusiness. But yeah, we still have,
yes, certainly, got other elementsand that's what as a business as
well, we're trying to be havenot all about ease of my basket and
be diversified. So that was anotherreason why the sheep milking side of it
(18:55):
looked good in case meat prices weren'tgood, wall prices obviously contributing much to
the bottom line. So yeah,so we are. It was another way
of looking at diversifying and future breafand business. And I think there's three
of you children, aren't there.Yeah. Yeah, so I'm the youngest.
(19:22):
Yeah, my sister's middle middle child, and then my brother. So
brothers four years older than me,So this is basically three years older than
me. And so are you allinvolved in the business. Yes. Yeah.
My brother's very hands on with thebrand side on within the factory and
(19:44):
that side of it logistics, gettingout product at the customers. My sister
sort of floats between the two shohelps within the factory as well and also
on the farm. And then yeah, I'm sort of sort of the same
very wrong passion for farming, butalso really involved with the branding, marketing,
(20:07):
and factory side of it as well. And then yeah, mums involved
and Dad basically full time on afarmer as well, introducing the sheep milking
business. You've talked about diversifying,and I think it's a thing that many
farmers think about when they want tocreate opportunities for the next generation. Is
it something that has allowed all threeof you to come home and be involved
(20:33):
or would you have all been ableto be involved if you hadn't created something
like this. Yeah, I meanit too has allowed us to come home
and I'll be involved within the farmingbusiness. My brother's probably not. You're
not only interested in being a farmor anything like that, but as passionate
(20:55):
about us on farming and creating goodproducts. But seems like it's really created
given him the opportunity to stay involvedwith the business and have the opportunity,
and yeah, otherwise, I thinkit would have been more difficult to get
everyone involved just I was. Withfarming. It's not always the lowest cash
(21:18):
cash positive business is generally very assetrich and cash for so that it has
allowed, yeah, to increase ourcash flow, and yeah, give us
all the opportunity, I guess tobe working with some of the business which
we probably wouldn't have been able todo otherwise. Nice. Okay, can
(21:40):
you talk me through a day inthe life of a sheep on your farm?
How does it work with the milking? You know, like do that
are they like cows? Do youmilk twice a day? Or you know?
How often do they come through thesheet? And how much milk does
a sheep produce on average each day? Yeah? At day in the life
(22:00):
luxurious living Bob to see Greape views. Yeah, but so we just milk
once a day in the morning,they'll get milked around sixteen six thirty.
Heading into winter, deck gets pushedback, so we're not milking in the
dark, So seven thirty aim atthe moment. And yeah, so they'll
(22:25):
just come in once a day,milked and shed. They get fed around
two hundred hundred and fifty grams ofbarley and it's i just as a way
of enticing them in there, butalso be as a way of increasing there,
like the meeting the energy cuirements toproduce milk and keep keep them healthy
(22:45):
and keep fat on the back sortof thing. And from there they are
just one hundred percent part of fed. So they'll generally get like daily shifts
if fed predominantly on red clover plantain. That's what we find really produces the
best milk with set. They're notlike a cow. You couldn't have them
(23:07):
on on rye grass like you justyou just can't get the same performance out
of them. And yeah, andso that's basically their data is coming once
a day and then they're sifted andit's them for the for the day.
We haven't got any irrigation or anythinglike that. But in the summer we
will feed the fire crops. Sowe're finding turnips works really well. They
(23:32):
love it. They milk really welloff, but there's no milk tain.
That's when red clover and plantains theymight do four hours on the earning,
spend the night on the on thepasture, and as far as milk production
goes, they're doing. I guessthis is the area where the gains are
(23:53):
really quick and signs still when it'sinfancy. So we started off and the
average production per year per milking seasonor milking period, which is around two
hundred days, it was about onehundred and fifty liters and this year we
should be pretty close to three hundredliters or about eighty two ninety overseas,
(24:17):
then a sort of turner in twentyday milking period and a bar they're getting
six hundred liters plus average, sothey're quite a bit ahead, but also
have a really high intensive cost structure. So we're really hopefully aiming within the
next five years to get average aroundthree fifty four hundred and that's a really
(24:37):
nice sweet spot. And yeah,especially from an economic perspective as well.
So still still we're way to go, but we've got some of our top
years doing well over that now,so we know the potential is there,
just yeah, making sure the geneticsand and our feeding for them is up
to par. Yeah. Well that'sa huge gain from when you started to
(25:00):
now, and I mean that's amazing, and obviously, like you said,
there is still so much potential,so there's there's a lot of room there
to make even further gains, sothat I imagine it would probably get will
tend to get quite summer dry whereyou are, or it could be progn
to. So I guess your wayof mitigating that is your foto crops that
you've just spoken about, Yes,exactly. So do you hands on actually
(25:23):
getting the shed and put like doyou put cups on the shape or how
does it work? Yeah? Yeah, I do try and get them at
least once or twice a week basicallyjust so that I can well keep in
touch with more production, keep intouch with hell. But they're looking the
user, looking whether they're like gettingshitty or something like that, so that
(25:47):
we can manage that appropriately either withthe way that we're feeding them, trying
to feed them something that's got morecarb and trying to basically firm up with
their poo and yeah, from thatside of it, but also just basically
making sure that the plant hygiene init as it should be. But I'm
not in the every day because Ido go into the factory to do that
(26:12):
side of it in the processing.So we've got a really cool team that
like there here our hitship is andthen we've got about three ladies that do
a lot of our milking, soyeah, we sort of make a match
between them and I do try andget on fire as much as they can,
(26:33):
but because have a huge passion forit. But you have been running
that factory side of it, Idon't. Yeah, my weeks can be
very as far as like how manydays a week of one farm or not?
Yeah, okay, yeah, no, that's that's cool that you have
that variety really and great that you'veobviously been able to provide employment opportunities for
(26:53):
other local people because you guys arequite remote and quite nice laded out there
where you are. I say thatyou guys were the first dairy farm to
get their SPCA Animal Wealthier certification,which is fantastic. So what does that
actually mean and what was the processto get certified? Yeah? That was
(27:18):
Yeah, that's been something we're reallyproud of. From the get go.
We really wanted to great a brandthat people, even population we don't know
too much about farmer can look atit and be proud of it. And
also we hope to try and breakdown some of the misconceptions of farmers in
the way they treat animals, becauseI'd say ninety nine point nine percent of
(27:42):
farmers are really big animal lovers andthat's why they're doing what they're doing.
So getting that Animal out certification waswas it a way that we hope to
try and connect with consumers and makethem think a little bit about how their
food is produced and from an animalwealth fair perspective, and maybe to start
(28:06):
asking questions. There's still a lotof products that are am boarded into New
Zealand that have significantly lower animal healthystandards and what New Zealanders here, And
yes, part of it we justwant to stake getting raiz peals awas and
making people start thinking about how thefood is produced. And so the whole
(28:26):
certification process basically look at your wholefarming business from like on farm, but
also your your business planning, Sowhat are you going to do and droughts,
What what feed management plans do youhave in place if you're yeah,
if you do have a drought orif you're a really wet winter, are
you going to fill ensure that youcan maintain your us health? And then
(28:53):
it's like looks at fence and makingsure that the quality of water. We're
going to test the water quality andthings like that, So just making sure
from a holistic perspective, the animalslooked after to a really rest standard,
Like there's exposure to stress as aminimal. If there's any animals that are
(29:15):
getting stick around house, they're treatedstraight away or preferably they're prevented from getting
to that stage. So what sortof preventative actions are you doing? And
then things like shade and shelter.So one reason why I really love this
farm and mom and dad has donea really good job is they've always had
(29:36):
a focus on planting trees for shadeand shelter, and that's a big thing
they look at as there to theanimals have access to shade and shelter in
each paddock. And yeah, andour farm's got just treated everywhere and it's
really cool and it's something really coolthat we've seen on that is that like
fish in summer, our best shadedpadducts are always our paddocks that produced the
(30:00):
most milk. So it goes toshow that not only does it help them
from an animal wealthier perspective, butthere's also productivity gain from looking after them
well. So they're obviously not burninga whole lot of energy just trying to
keep cool. So it's really fair. It'sfying to see. Yeah, and
then so we get ordered to twicea year basically every six months. There's
(30:23):
one sort of standard order and thenone just random order where they just turn
up basically and they look through checkwater, check the us like ours,
making sure they're healthy, and walkthrough the through the flock chip based away.
Yeah, they basically do a fullfum check, check the shed,
(30:44):
make sure that there's nothing I guessalarming, like anything that animals could injure
themselves on. So yeah, theybasically look for everything from a hellistic perspective
and just trying to raise the standardsbasically of the way that you're doing for
the animals. Fantastic, Well,congratulations on having that certification. I think
(31:06):
that's really great to hear of farmersdoing things like that. I'd love to
now move to a slightly different areaof the business because it's obviously one thing
to be good at farming and beable to produce lots of milk and have
a really high standard on farm,but it's quite another to also have your
whole supply chain, you know,to be creating your own brand, product
(31:29):
development, all that sort of thing, which you guys do as well,
which is husually impressive. So I'dlove to know a little bit more about
how you've developed your products. Imean, you only need to give away
any trade secrets or anything. I'mnot going to start shape milking here,
but I'd just love to know whatkind of processes you guys had to go
through to get a product from,you know, a state of coming from
(31:51):
the shape to actually being on ashelf. Yeah, we were probably quite
naive I think starting out with howmuch work it was. Yeah, and
it's like now basically we were neverdairy farmers, and we've learned how a
dairy farm. So we've basically savedthree companies. We've seen We've started a
dairy farming company, a processing company, and then also a marketing company more
(32:14):
or less. I mean that's that'sthat's the points with on the supply chain
that we're controlling. So yeah,of course we probably didn't realize how much
the job it was. So it'sjust been a giant learning process ready for
us, and it's been. Itwasn't exactly a blueprint, just a matter
of reaching out, asking a lotof questions too different people, and I
(32:38):
guess building the path as you went. So we started off with flavored milk
which we developed at Mess Universities.We worked with them to develop the product
and then we were uh and westill don't work with Kingsmaid Cheese and we
operate out of the same processing facilities. Yeah, so that was the port
(33:01):
development at Mass and then started gettingthe infrastructure that we needed within the factory
in town, and then the brandside of it, like that was always
something I was passionate about, liketrying to start something up and be running
your own business. And university didhave a bit with that, like my
(33:24):
degree in Masters was in global adbusiness and food marketing. But it's as
I've learned and theories great, butactual experiences is quite another thing. And
yeah, watching a textbookers is alwaysvery logical and very easy what's what's not
(33:45):
in the textbookers the fact that thatyou're dealing with people on the other end
of that and they can always welloften be quite tricky or be straightforward and
then stepped down in the textbox.So that's been something that we've learned as
well. Yeah, we just basicallyflowly found our feet from the product development
(34:07):
side, started like trading social mediasand things like that, web site,
building the branding side of it upas well as building up the genetics and
supply side at the same time thatit's been, yeah, a bit of
a juggling act, but something thatwe've yeah, a real learning process and
(34:29):
it has just been one problem solving, one problem to solve after the other
basically, and it's just how welook at it. So what do you
think is the biggest thing that you'velearned along the way? Or there might
be multiple things about starting a businesslike this from scratch an industry or a
part of the industry. I mean, it's obviously part of agriculture, but
(34:51):
it's quite niche. There's not alot, like you said, there's not
a lot of blueprint to do whatyou've done. Yeah, I think but
one of the biggest things that I'velearned is is there anything in life if
you can get excited by solving problems, then you're going to do pretty well
because there's just going to be actuallyone problem or one, yeah, one
(35:15):
problem after the other. Not thatit's like looking on it from a needive
perspective. It's just problem solving.You've got something that that pops up,
like whether you need to learn howto do to do your own processing or
what equipment do that's a piece ofthe puzzle that you need to solve regulatory
standards like learning how to do it, and I think it is. Yeah,
(35:37):
big thing is it's just learning justjust do it. As far as
you can't always get other people doit, and if you do get other
people that it's going to be quiteexpensive. And so if you can learn
to do it yourself and just toroll your sleeves up and just attack it,
I think you're actually doing really wellfrom it, and you'll learn a
(35:59):
lot more than just hiring someone elseto do it and solve your issues for
you. I mean, there's obviouslyit's going to be some things that are
outsourced, but it's trying to pickthose battles and and like knowing your own
skill set and when you look ata problem that is there is the something
you can solve, the something youcan learn, and its attack it and
(36:22):
just go for it, because there'snothing like learning by doing, especially for
me, Like that's why I learned. Yeah, so that's an ey big
thing. And also like just makingsure that you understand but the why,
I think is really important. Yeah, because it's not always going to be
a planned it's going to be someyeah, very long days. As long
(36:45):
as you know the why, it'sa lot easier to keep going and keep
wanting to solve those problems. SoI think that's a really key thing to
identify. Okay, so what asyour wife? Then? Uh yeah,
I got multiple but a big oneis around that trying trying to break down
(37:12):
some misconceptions between but yeah, butfarming as the background in New Zealand,
you know, I just want tobe able to share a good story to
help get more people on the sideof farmers and just make down some of
those bears between actually where does myfood come from? How they're producer and
hopefully start to raise some of thosequestions with consumers him thinking about it,
(37:38):
them thinking about like our products,this is like New Zealand products, this
other ones that they can buy intomarkets or all the way that food is
actually produced or I mean like otherones. There's a lot of plant milk
or plant milk that are out there. Are they actually sustainable or is it
green washing? And just like justtrying to be a little bit more critical
(38:00):
out those purchases and the beliefs thatthey have. Other side is, yeah,
I'd love to be able to basicallyget our farming business, yes to
a stage where mum and Dad cansort of step back a bit more.
(38:20):
They hopefully aning a bit more moneyso can afford to employ more people and
enjoy life a bit more because obviouslyfarming can be quite a twenty four to
seven arrangement. Yeah, that's anothermotivation. It's just trying to do something
that adds more be ableity to ourfamily business and hopefully freeing up a bit
(38:42):
of a bit of time for yourground basically. Yeah. And then and
there's a yeah, I guess awhole lot of other internal sort of motivation
just around we believe steep market.There's a raw product that's really good.
There's to be something that New Zealandershave access to and hopefully export as well.
Because it is good for the environment, it is good for people.
(39:05):
It's a great out to and lookfor people who don't tolerate camels. But
yeah, it's also another big motivator. I just think that it actually is
a really great option for New Zealandfarming, but also the consumers that consume.
Yeah, yeah, well, thereare plenty of people out there with
intolerances to dary. My husband isone who definitely doesn't agree with him too
(39:30):
much, so I might hope toget him onto some of your sheep milk
if I wanted to find your products. If if someone's listening and they think,
oh, that sounds like a bitof me, I want to go
give this a go. Where canthey find your products? Can you buy
online or watch supermarkets or stores?Are you in Yes, we're mostly in
the North Island. We have studieddown for a few stores in the announcment
(39:53):
area, but we're predominantly in NewRod's pack and Staves and then whole foods
more Wilson Sparrows will be and thenthere's individually owned whole food stores as well,
so they can be found. We'vegot a store located on our website,
which has been going farm dot co, do on m Z and otherwise
(40:17):
that we can do directs but directlysell to people, but it has to
be delivered to business addresses, justbeen the nature of a chill product.
The Chill Careers will only do businessdelivery and they weren't do residential yet.
Yes, at the moment, it'ssort of the areas that we're in.
(40:39):
We're in most of them my mainregions with from the North Island and still
slowly growing our store numbers and reach. Yeah, that sounds like that's a
challenge for you or something for youto I can imagine that'll be on your
agenda in terms of how you cangrow there or how you can find to
(41:00):
be able to do those child salesdirect to people through a website or something
like that. And you seem likeyou have problem solved most other things along
the way, so I'm sure thatyou'll correct that one time too. We
will put the website in all yoursocial media handles in our show notes as
well, so if anyone is keen, they'll be able to just jump on
(41:22):
there and have a look. Ithink again, like most of the people
I have on this podcast, Ifeel like we could keep talking for a
long time. However, we arerunning out of time. I'd love to
just ask a final question before weget into the five fast facts, and
that is what advice would you giveif you were looking at yourself, you
know, in your final year athigh school and looking back on it,
(41:46):
what advice would you give to otheryoung people that are not necessarily interested in
sheet milking? But if you've gotan idea or a business that you want
to give a go, what wouldyou say, day so, eighteen year
old Cam. Now, Yeah,it's a hard one. I think one
(42:08):
of the key things, like Imean, in my opinion, I think
if you want to go out andmake money, it's really easy to do.
In my opinion, if you ifyou solely just want to go out
and make money, is businesses thatyou can create that might not really motivate
you or you might not be thatmotivated by apart from making money, And
(42:29):
I think seeing those things up isactually relatively easy. What is hard,
I think is setting up a businessthat you're really passionate about for reasons like
the environment and like nutrition, andyou're really trying to build something that you
really want to believe, oh thatyou really believe in it and you want
to see change or make change inBut we're trying to I guess, help
(42:52):
or hopefully help make change within theagricultural industry. So I think if there's
something that you're really passionate about,it's certainly worth pursuing. And I guess
quite that I only forget there's nothingventured, nothing gain. I think when
we're starting out a big one,Yeah, you've got nothing to lose.
(43:15):
If you wanted to go out andmake money, I think there's either way
to do that. But if youwant to go out and try and make
a genuine change, it may ormay not work out, but yeah,
nothing they do, nothing gain,and if it does work out, it's
going to have a lot more satisfyingthan just doing a nine to five or
Yeah cool, I like that,that's really cool. Yeah, there's a
(43:38):
difference between creating a business that mighthave a really good bottom line, but
if you want to have all theother stuff as well, which I can
see quite clearly from your website inthe way that you've spoken today that you
guys are really patient about telling theright story or a story that is going
to break down those barriers or seenthe right message about farming, which is
(44:00):
not as easy necessarily as easy todo, or it takes more care and
attention. So I love that thatadvice. I think that's really it's really
solid. So just to finish now, we'll go on to our five fast
facts. The first one, camis what is one app that you need
(44:22):
to run your business? Yeah,we use a lot of meta business so
that covers off like Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, so that combines a whole
lot, and we run and appliedto black people's messages and things like that
through this. So that's one thatwe're using heaps. Yeah, it is
(44:44):
a good one for kind of coordinatingall of that stuff to get that it's
a real time saver. Yeah.What is the best advice you've ever received?
I think you probably just have togo that quote nothing you did,
nothing gained. I think kay forme, that that's put me of Yeah,
(45:07):
why not buy something you can?You can certainly go through life not
try anything, but what you're goingto gain out of it I think is
going to be Yeah, hell ofa lot. Least I did wonder if
you might go back to that quiteit's a good one. Okay. Number
three, a business or a personin business who you look up to and
(45:28):
why Yeah, I think for thoselike my parents certainly have done a pretty
good job. So you always feelthat we look back to I mean,
we're obviously involved with him with thebusiness, so when we look up to
him and they've got a lot ofbusiness now, they've successfully build up there
their farming business. So the mostregular ones that that I do ideas often
(45:53):
yeah, awesome, Okay, ifyou could change one thing, and this
could be in business, or itcould be in life, could be anything.
It doesn't help to necessarily be inrelationship sheep milking. If you could
change one thing, what would itbe. Yeah, I think the ability
(46:15):
to if I could change, Ithink it would be around it. Like
the way that businesses or big entitiesaround the world can push agendas are quite
fast. I just look at thingsaround farming and it were always really frustrating
about how farming, fishing, NewZealand farmers get put down. There's the
(46:38):
reason for climate change and things likethat or global warming, and I just
think that's largely from big powerful peoplethat have a lot of money behind them
using us as the escape go becausefrom a common sense level, it really
doesn't make sense. But it doesn'tjust happen from farming too. I think
there's other things, but nutrition wise, like how that was all of a
(47:00):
sudden the big devil a while agoand now it's actually seen it's been a
really important part of the diet,and it's all. Yeah, I think
that's people were in a bit morehonestly at the high level and not pushing
their energy like that. That wouldjust create a pretty cool world to live.
And I think, yeah, yeah, you're right. The key messages
(47:22):
that come out around things like thatare often perpetrator or I able to be
pushed by those people that perhaps havemoney to do so, or to spend
your marketing campaigns or you know.So I understand where you're coming from with
that one. Finally, and veryimportantly, it does pineapple belong on a
(47:44):
pizza? Yes? From me?Yeah, I love a bit of pineapple
on a pizza. Very good.We're going to see a pineapple flavored sheep
milk at any stage? Yeah,I'm not sure about that one, but
yeah we could. We could possiblyput something on the work, but I'd
(48:04):
have to do some research and thereI think I can't I don't know if
I can imagine pineapple milk, butstranger things have happened, yim. Thank
you, thank you so much foryour time. I really love having a
chat with you and learning a bitmore about your business and how you've built
it up and how you've got whereyou are all the best with everything and
(48:25):
we look forward to seeing where youguys go next. Awesome. Thanks very
much for haming me. You've justbeen listening to cam raving with there from
friendli and fans. I think whatthey're doing there is really interesting. They
(48:47):
already had a very strong, profitablefarming business, or his parents did,
and they've looked at ways that theycan value it there, which is what
the sheep milking brings to the business. It really struck me how they're such
a tight family unit and how everyonein the family is involved in the business
and works together. So from theirparents through to his two siblings all have
(49:09):
a role in some way in thebusiness, which allows the farm business to
give an opportunity for all family membersto be involved, which is fantastic.
I also really thought it was interestingwhat he said about hear in his opinion,
it's pretty easy to make money businesswhat isn't so easy is setting up
a business that you're really passionate aboutfor reasons that include sustainability, the environment,
(49:36):
aligning with all of their values,things like having their certification, these
PCA animal welfare certification, and reallylooking at how the business can be sustainable
in terms of looking after the soils, looking after the animals, but also
being profitable. So it's not soeasy to have a profitable business that encompasses
(49:59):
all of those things. And Ithink that's where he was saying that that's
where the real challenge lies. Sonothing ventured, nothing gained, and nothing
to lose by trying to make genuinechange. So I hope you enjoyed that
episode with cam Ravenwood from Fern glenkFarms and turn in next time for another
episode of From the ground Up.
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Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.