Our story

As a third-generation dairy farmer, I grew up on a dairy farm. I loved cows and I loved farming.

But I didn’t love the way the dairy industry was changing.

Around the world, traditional smaller family farms are becoming unviable and are being replaced by much bigger corporate-style farms.

This trend is affecting all aspects of the industry from animal welfare to staffing.

My options were to conform to the industrial dairy model and work really hard for 15 years and maybe I’d own a small share of a very big dairy farm or simply exit the dairy industry altogether.

But, there should be a third option.

I was determined to create a more ethical and sustainable dairy model. Maybe other farmers could adopt it too.

I leased some land and built a mobile milking shed. I started an old-fashioned low-intensity pasture-based farm. I planted diverse pasture species and adopted regenerative farming practices.

I sold my milk in reusable glass bottles. 

But the thing Happy Cow Milk became most known for, was that I left all our calves with their mothers. 

At this point, I was pretty chuffed. My customers were loyal and passionate. Together, it felt like we were changing something really important.

But I’d only solved the first part of the supply chain. And it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t get milk to consumers affordably. The cost of processing, and distributing the milk was too high.

My cows may have been happy, but my business wasn’t.

In 2018, I admitted defeat and closed the business.

What happened next, brought me to tears and changed my life.

My customers and a growing tribe of supporters from around the world sent me kind messages and propped me up financially so I could go back to the drawing board and continue the mission.

My experience was not unique. I was contacted by many farmers around the world who had also tried to process and sell their milk and found it was so hard to process milk at the farm level efficiently. 

Sustainable dairy has to be profitable dairy.

My problem was an efficiency problem.

There was work for two people but only the money for one. As we grew there was work for 3 people and only money for 2.

I set out to design a super-efficient on-farm milk processing system designed specifically to allow farmers to sell their milk profitably.

Since 2019 Happy Cow Milk has been funded by selling shares in the company to our crowd of committed supporters.