Buffalo Cheese, Yoghurt and Milk

The Wills and Armstrong families imported riverine buffalo from Australia three years ago to launch a cheese making business that generates a good income from a small land area. They now have a milking herd of 25 cows, plus a similar number of young and replacement stock, meat producers and bulls. They make a range of soft cheeses and yoghurt from buffalo milk and sell at the Matakana market and through restaurants.

Auckland has two buffalo milking herds – one in North Auckland and one in South Auckland – working independently towards sustainable buffalo cheese and milk products from pasture-based systems. Buffalo are milked in many countries, notably Italy, which has a tradition of fresh buffalo mozzarella. Australia is a source of the breeding stock, plus Italian semen. Buffalo milk is some two-and-a-half times the milk solids of cows milk, with 4.5% protein, 8% fat, higher calcium, the same lactose (sugar) and half the cholesterol. It is also all A2 protein, not A1 (most cow’s milk) and people with dairy intolerance are often able to consume buffalo milk products.

Whangaripo Buffalo operates in two locations – the cheese making and young stock at Dairy Flat on 60ha of leased land associated with the Redvale Landfill, where the Wills family live (Chris is operations manager of the landfill), and the Whangaripo Valley farm of 20ha where the milking herd runs and is milked. The cheese plant used to be at Whangaripo but has now been relocated to Dairy Flat and the chilled milk transferred in pails. The Dairy Flat location is more convenient for the family members. Annie Armstrong and her mother Pam Wills are the trained cheesemakers, while Phil Armstong is a builder and fisherman who goes to Whangaripo every afternoon for the once-a-day milking. Annie has an agriculture degree from Massey.

Young stock and dry stock are run at Dairy Flat on 60ha leased which is moving over from horse breeding (warmbloods) to buffalo. Calves are reared on the bottle initially after receiving colostrum milk, and then weaned on to pasture. The herd replacements are mated to calve at 2.5 years, while the bull calves will be reared for slaughter. There is no buffalo meat processing or retailing yet – just under development using Ruakura abattoir. Bull is run with the cows all year round, therefore calving is spread throughout the year, which suits the cheese production and demand.

Annie and Pam attended cheese making school at Putaruru and are now processing several days each week. Milk is pasteurised and then inoculated with standard dairy rennet and starters. They make soft cheeses such as brie, ricotta, haloumi, pecarino, blue and will also be doing fresh mozzarella. They also make some buffalo yoghurts.

All products are sold from a stall at the Matakana Farmers Market, Saturday mornings. Some products are also being couriered to restaurants around the country.

Cheese processing is done in a Portacon and finished or maturing products kept in chillers. When three-phase power is connected, they will produce mozzarella with a cheese stretching machine imported from Italy. Strictly speaking, mozzarella should only be used for the fresh buffalo product, not the harder, long-life cow’s product.   The pasteuriser takes 160 litres, which is two-three days production depending on the number of cows in milk. Buffalo milk is much whiter than dairy cows milk (often called porcelain white) because buffalo turn carotene in grass into vitamin A. They are not keen on clover, but they do love rushes, so clean up paddocks well.

At present about 20 cows are in milk, once-a-day, through a nine-a-side herringbone. Another 10 cows to calve and join the herd. The partnership intends to build up to 40-45 cows in the herd as the maximum carrying capacity on that 20ha. All feeding is from pasture or baleage, no supplements like palm kernel. Buffalo have a very good immune system, not prone to disease except malignant catarrh which they can catch from other livestock species. They require minimum animal health treatments, no antibiotics, no drenches. They are not prone to mastitis but when they are infected they heal up quickly. They have very low somatic cell counts.

First calving is at 2.5 years and they will live up to 30 years, meaning a very low herd replacement rate. The lactations at 240 to 320 days and typical milk production is four to eight litres per day, with a maximum of 10 litres. Because their milk volume is smaller, the milk solids content is higher than cow’s milk. The milking plant is standard, with some fine tuning of the vacuum, but special buffalo cup liners from Italy are used. Cows are walked in during the afternoon and milked between 3pm and 5pm every day. The herd cows are five years old on average, after being bought from NSW as in-calf heifers in one planeload of 20 animals. The importation was two bulls and 18 heifers, but one bull died. The remaining bull is the oldest buffalo at Whangaripo – seven years old.