Tamworth businesses saddened by closure of Peel Valley Milk factory

Australia is on track to produce the lowest amount of milk in three decades, according to ANZ's Agri-Insights, and the cost of dairy-based products continues to skyrocket.

In yet another blow for the industry, Tamworth-based supplier Peel Valley Milk will cease operations after October 18.

Owner Todd Wilson - a fifth generation Tamworth dairy farmer - announced the decision via social media on Wednesday, October 4, having already told his local restaurant and cafe customers.

"It has been such a great journey getting to know you all over this time, however we regretfully must inform you of our closure," Mr Wilson said in a post on Facebook.

"We would love to continue but unfortunately external market influences have led our business to make the difficult decision to close for now."

He said the farm would remain operational, milking cows, but the factory would close.

READ MORE: Peel Valley Milk dealing with drought conditions in Tamworth

"We would love to see all our customers during these final weeks to personally thank you for your continued support and wish you all the best moving forward.

"To have such positive feedback on all our products has made it all worthwhile and something we will always be proud of," the post concludes.

Aside from the milk, Teamo cafe staff said what they will miss most is their beloved milkman.

"We're pretty lucky, he is a nice bloke and we have a drink with him after work on a Friday afternoons," cafe owner Prue Russ said.

The milkman delivers more than 35 bottles of fresh milk to the cafe, three days a week.

"Over the past four and half years we have built such a strong relationship with him," Ms Russ said.

READ MORE: Tamworth dairy picks up a gold and four silvers at national awards show

"He will forever be known as our milkman."

The loss of the dairy factory to the region is a shame she said, because many businesses still prefer to shop local.

"We're going to purchase our milk from Norco. We feel like Norco has the closest milk to what we use at the moment and we want to keep it Australian," she said.

Andrew Hamilton owns 'Spilt Milk' gelato bar in Tamworth.

He said he was sad to see the factory close. Spilt Milk makes all their gelato with Peel Valley Milk.

"We now have 18 days to set ourselves up with another milk supplier," he said.

"It came as quite a shock to us, as we use a lot of it as you can imagine.

"We are also coming into our biggest time of year, where we do about two tonnes of gelato a week - that is a lot of milk."

Mr Hamilton said business will not be impacted over the coming weeks, but they will need to adjust their recipes for a different volume of cream.

"We've held our prices and we are still the lowest in the market place for costs," Mr Hamilton said.

"But we are being impacted by the rising commodity prices, like everywhere we are being impacted by the rising costs of inflation."

NSW Farmers' Dairy Committee chair Phil Ryan said the dairy industry is at a critical juncture.

"We are having issues with competing for land use, particularly in NSW," he said.

"Our dairy country is along the coast and is under pressure, with sea-changers and tree-changers moving out of capital cities and driving land prices up."

Some of the other factors, Mr Ryan said, include difficulty finding labour, an ageing population of dairy farmers, and rising inflation, alongside extreme weather events, such as droughts and bushfires.

Mr Ryan said fewer local dairy farms will mean a greater reliance on imported products.

"We have a risk of cheaper imports particularly from New Zealand," he said.

READ ALSO:

"It is sad for the communities, because that is one of the strengths of the dairy industry, where we can capture some customer loyalty.

"It is a challenging business."

The final day of distribution for Peel Valley Milk will be Wednesday, October 18, 2023.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: