Originally Posted by
NT001
Earlier I speculated that maybe Fresha Valley is unable to supply Countdown and other outlets with enough A2 milk to meet demand. That’s NOT TRUE.
Being a strong believer that getting the facts can often be quite useful, I just picked up the old telephone and had a very interesting and constructive chat with the owner-manager of Fresha Valley, which is the sole NZ supplier of A2 Milk.
Several things emerged.
They supply basically every Countdown store in NZ, plus a few New World stores (Porirua is one) and other outlets including health food stores.
They have plenty of A2 milk available, tonnes more than they have orders for, and won’t refuse any supermarket that asks for it. If any supermarket is running short it’s because they aren’t ordering enough, and we should tell them that Fresha says so.
They’re located in Waipu, in Northland, but they deliver to outlets in the whole of the South Island the day after processing.
They’re quite a big outfit, one of the only non-Fonterra firms in the country with their own big processing plant for domestic supply. A2 milk is just a small part of their total operation and they have quite a chunk of the Auckland market for standard milk.
They have a contract A2 herd which supplies them, and surprisingly the entire herd is Friesian, but of course every cow has been tested as A2-A2.
They are well aware of what the science says about A1/A2 and what’s going on in Australia and England, and would like to promote A2 milk here for its health attributes. But whenever they do they get heavied by big lawyers (he won’t say who for, but one could guess) and they can’t afford the time or expense to get involved in bigtime litigation. So they leave it to Keith Woodford to make the case for A2 in NZ.
Also they have to maintain good relations with Fonterra because they live and do business in the same world as Fonterra and there’s quite a bit of milk trading between them although Fresha is independent.
Hope that’s helpful.