Glass Half Full

I am always being asked, how is Bethune Lane Dairy going? When I see people freaking out a bit and thinking it has no future, I’m more optimistic.

Anyone that thinks they can just walk in to a crowded and longstanding dairy marketplace and make money in year one is in fantasy land!

So the bad news-last year we lost enough money to buy a house in Lake Boga with cash. This year, my aim is only to lose enough for a deposit on the same house. Next year I am hoping to break even, so yes it sounds bad, but I think we are where we need to be.

At this point what it means in practical terms is I am getting most of my costs back, ie bottles, labels, freight and most of the labour costs. But from the start I have been, and still am, donating milk to the cause.

Through Coronavirus we have been able to reduce our risk and increase our sales. We have done that with limited production and manufacturing experience, no marketing experience, unfortunately no real plan, and worst of all we haven’t been able to push (because of coronavirus and farm and family pressures).

My gutometre (highly reliable) is telling me if we can double the size of the business and halve the production costs in the next twelve months, we will be close to breaking even in operations, including milk payment. The elephant in the room in all of these startups is how to fund the giant hole for capital infrastructure/development while you are losing money.

I understand why people freak out when I tell them how much we have lost, but I don’t lose sight of the goal-”to build a business of significance for Lake Boga that we and the community can be proud of”.

I can see that in ten years we will be employing 20-30 people in the milk enhancement centre and turning over 5 - 10 million per year (who is in fantasy-land now?)

There is a long history in the dairy industry of startups going broke and look, we might not make it, and my criteria for letting it go is if it puts our main farm at risk, then that’s the end. We have to play smart and in the places we can with product differientiation, product quality and marketing/branding.

In exciting news we have Manu the celebrity chef coming to our farm this week. I also have the managing director of a $50 million dollar logistics coming for a farm visit to give me some advice; and I have a meeting with a head buyer of a large supermarket chain coming up.

I just need to bear some fruit to keep buying us more time to settle into what we are doing.

If you haven’t danced a jig today, you really should consider it!

Until next time, Paul