Lindsay Farm
You’ll find year on year Cost Kiwis’ Favourite Food Producer and multi-medal winner Lindsay Farm among the quiet flats that separate the Ruahines from the coast, where their healthy cows and healthy milk reign supreme. Five minutes out of Waipukurau, the one-hundred-hectare Lindsay Farm offers a luxury home to its one hundred and twenty head of grass-fed cattle. Within a closed system that sees two cows a week calved year-round on an in-and-out policy, a hundred lucky girls are milked only once daily, keeping production at its peak and quality control at its most precise.
It’s ’99, the Feelers are in their pomp, the All Blacks have lost to Les Bleus, and Helen Clark has bet them. New Zealand is a changing land amidst the turn of the millennium. But with change comes opportunity, and when a Hawke’s Bay dairy farming bookworm reads rumours of organic revolution, she takes note.
Twenty-four years later, the All Blacks have lost to Les Bleus again (albeit in pool play), but a female-led Labour still hasn’t. Unfortunately for some, The Feelers are no longer as relevant. Fortunately for Hawke’s Bay, Lindsay Farms certainly is.
Christine Ashton’s foresight, coupled with a knack for adaptability and hard work that she shares with her husband Paul, father Bryan, and kids Ange and Mike, has led the family business to acclaim. In 2023, they received a Silver Medal for their certified organic A2 milk and were named Kiwis’ Favourite Food Producer in the 2023 Outstanding Food Producer Awards.
“ It’s all about the cows”
Their boutique production model sees 5,000L of milk produced weekly. Eighty per cent is sold raw and twenty per cent pasteurised, with every last drop going straight to an entirely local consumer base. The pasteurisation process is minimal; ensuring the good stuff is as close as possible to what nature intended and supplying locally helps reduce the farm’s carbon footprint. Everything about the operation is kept niche and precisely managed, right down to the fact it’s all within the family, all hands on deck.
But how did the family go from a whiff of the organic produce revolution to an industry leader, selling an award-winning product? It’s “All about the cows,” says Ange Brooks, daughter of Christine and Bryan; “healthy cows, healthy milk.”
In those early days, working out of a larger plot of land with ‘Supersystem’ blasting from the milking shed radio (we assume), Ange and Bryan noticed that an ever-increasing expenditure on conventional systems offered little corresponding return. The more money they pumped in, the less quality pumped out. Cow health deteriorated, and costs only increased.
Caring as much for the cows as for their bottom lines, the family looked for change. Twenty-two years ago, they purchased Lindsay Road, running organic from the get-go and achieving organic certification six years later.
At first, demand for raw milk was merely a query from locals looking to benefit from its fabled health benefits. In 2008, the farm started selling raw milk, delivering six two-litre bottles a week. Then, with word of mouth and the help of a strong endorsement from the brains behind BePure - Ben Warren, demand took off.
A couple of years passed, and the people wanted more. Servicing Fonterra with a farm of their scale was always a stretch. So, in 2010, Lindsay Farms stepped away from Fonterra and began supplying all their milk to local stockers.
Today, the farm leaves 1,700 raw milk moustaches each week. Convenient depots are stationed at eight shops throughout Hawkes Bay, with all orders standardised and set. Customers pay directly and then visit the stores to collect the milk.
At total capacity for pasteurised output, Lindsay Farms lines the shelves of five supermarkets, eight small stores, and a handful of cafes and coffee carts. Under the spectre of increased regulations and agri-costs and with an ever-focused eye on cow health and milk quality, there are no plans to expand.
Production, as it stands, puts a heavy enough demand on the family team of five. They work hard, “Almost too hard”, admits Ange. But as the only raw milk supplier in the area, Lindsay Farm’s milk practically sells itself, benefiting hugely from word of mouth in a tight-knit community.
It’s this supportive community that voted Lindsay Farms 2023’s Kiwis’ Favourite Food Producer. For the family, their close connection with the customers who buy raw and direct is something they cherish and use as motivation. Most of these customers have been with them since the start, and the family values and appreciates their biggest cheerleaders enormously. This support is what inspires the family and their devotion. For Ange, the family is “Not just doing a job. We are providing food to families and a positive impact.”
But of course, it’s not just people they're looking out for. ‘All about the cows.’ is Christine’s mantra, says Ange, and keeps their family working the way they do.
Even if it means Christine milking up to her waist during last year's floods or, in the early days, grandfather Bryan bottling and personally delivering the award-winning product to the community.
Learn more about Lindsay Farm here.