Few months ago, we were very happy to help Nick Power with our equipment. Now Nick and his company Jardin Estate bring happiness to their customers because they are the only commercial butter factory in Western Australia who produces healthy organic butter on the local market.

Looking at outstanding results of Jardin Estate in Western Australia, we decided to ask Nick more about his business and he kindly agreed to help us.

Some background of Nick Power, co-founder of Jardin Estate, first.

Nick Power has been involved in the Western Australian dairy industry since the late 1990’s.

In 2003 Margaret River Organic Creameries (MROC)came into being which is a business initiative between FA & CA Togno and Son and Nick Power.

MROC is Western Australia’s largest organic dairy farm and organic milk producer. It currently concentrates on supplying full cream organic pasteurised unhomogenised milk to meet the market demand for this product line. Some milk is provided to a local cheese maker with an organic cream line in the process of being established for Jardin Estate.

Jardin Estate is a joint venture between Nick Power and Margaret Nielsen whose primary product line is sweet butter.

Nick, I saw you hold on photo something brown, is that a chocolate butter? Do you make the butter only or other products, as well?

Sweet butter is the only line we have with following product range:

• Buttermilk (Sweet)
• Salted Butter;
• Unsalted Butter;
• Garlic Butter;
• Honey Butter;
• Truffle Butter; and
• Chocolate Butter (which is produced at Easter)

Important! How do you think, are you ready for running a small dairy business?  Download our Checklist with 15 Things You Should Consider Before Starting a Small Dairy Business. It will help you to avoid some costly mistakes.

Are there any dairy products you would like to add to your range in future?

Future butter products currently being assessed include:

• Butter Sauces
• Compound Butters – both fresh and frozen (Sweet); and
• Organic Salted Butter (Sweet)

Fresh cheese is also under consideration although this maybe a year or so away as we are concentrating on butter products.

Do you have your own animals or do you buy milk from another supplier? The milk of what animals do you use?

All milk used in our butter production comes from year-round pasture raised cows. Presently we are sourcing cream from other Western Australian dairy farmers but hope to be in a situation when we will be able to secure a large proportion of what we need now and in the future from MROC.

What was your biggest challenge when you started your business? Maybe strict gov rules, unknown demand, etc?

The government regulatory system was certainly quite difficult to navigate taking nearly 2 years before final approval was granted.

Demand was also unknown but our research had consistently shown there was a gap in the market for an artisan quality regionally based butter in Western Australia.

Sourcing and accessing affordable plant and equipment for our scale of production was a limiting factor taking much effort over a long period of time which continues to this day.

What is your biggest challenge right now?

Pretty much everything we do is essentially hand crafted and after just 4 months in production demand is growing so we are already looking at options and possibilities plant and equipment wise. That said it must be within parameters of being an artisanal product otherwise our market niche will be lost; the last thing we wish to become is a commodity producer. Being categorised as such would be extremely limiting as we would never to be able to compete with larger producers.

If you could do it easily, what would you change about your industry? Your clients? Other vendors?

Overall the industry is very good at communicating within itself and especially so at the small producer level. However, there seems to be an ever widening gap at whole of industry communication particularly when it involves the general public.

Also businesses and people staffing them forget that we are food producers not just commodity producers of dairy products. The more we lose that key point the further wide that gap with the public will widen and damage the essential link between people and dairy products especially at the small end of the market as we rely on local, regional artisanal.

What would you like to accomplish in the near future?

Continue to build a successful artisanal butter business and have fun doing it because if you don’t enjoy what your doing you will have limited connection to the people buying your product and thankfully the world is still a people place.

Where do you hope to be in five years? Ten? Twenty?

nitially continue to grow and expand Jardin Estate as successful artisanal butter business.

Over the coming years Jardin Estate will also expand into heliculture, horticulture and viticulture by building on the strong linkages with the greater Margaret River wine brand and of course our own business tag line of being ‘food purveyors of the usual’ covering products such as:
eyors of the usual’ covering products such as:

• Escargot (snails);
• Australian finger limes;
• Capers;
• Sparkling water; and of course
• Wine

The equipment Jardin Estate uses for butter production is cream separator Milky FJ 600 EAR and butter churn Milky FJ 32.

If you are artisanal producer of dairy products and you want us to tell your story to our readers, share it with us! Write us to hello@milkyday.com