FRESH MILK is often considered to be something of the past, but not at West Mossgiel Farm, Tarbolton, where dairy farmer, Bryce Cunningham, has succeeded in transforming his struggling farm into a successful, home-grown business. He has ventured into the market of selling ‘traditional’ milk, which has been well received by locals and shops across Scotland.

This success is a far cry from two-years-ago, when Bryce, one of the main faces during Scotland’s dairy crisis, led groups of disheartened dairy farmers, struggling to maintain their businesses on poor milk prices, storming into supermarkets and purchasing every carton of milk from the shelves, before giving them away outside for free.

Asked why they did this, they simply said: “We may as well be handing it out for free; considering how low we are being paid for it!”

At the time of the protests, Bryce had only recently come back to work at his late father’s farm, after spending years working in the motor trade as an engineer for Mercedes Benz. He explained: “I had had a year alone on the farm, with my wife, Amy, and our first son, Arran.

“During this time, the milk price paid had dropped from 28p to 15.5p per litre, before reaching the lowest price we were ever paid, which was 9.6p per litre.

“My wife had been on maternity leave without pay, as she was only at her new job a short time when she fell pregnant, and this, coupled with a poor milk price, little farming experience, poor summer weather and being tenant farmers, caused many issues for us that year, so much so, in fact, that the bank could no longer support our business, meaning I had to sell off most of my cows, and a small section of land.”

Since then, Bryce has managed to create a fantastic business for himself, which he set up using 20 Ayrshire cows that he kept behind after his dispersal.

He started off by supplying a local shop with fresh milk from the farm, and to do this he used the rest of his savings to purchase a pasteuriser. He then noticed that there was a demand elsewhere for fresh milk (this milk is pasteurised, but is left non-homogenised and non-standardised), with many people saying they missed the taste of “old” milk.

With this in mind, and using the power of good old social media, particularly Facebook, Bryce advertised his product online, and started to receive interest from locals in the nearby towns, who wanted to once again experience the taste of “traditional” milk.

Although this went well to begin with, Bryce realised this would never be a sustainable way to market his product.

He said: “People were interested in the fresh milk at first, but eventually that popularity started to wear off again.

“Obviously we have those people who have remained loyal to us, and who make a point of coming out to Mossgiel to purchase the milk, but why bother when they can just pick it up in the supermarket?”

It was at this point Bryce decided to try and expand his market, and managed to sell his milk through some more local shops and bakers, meaning people weren’t required to go so far out of the way to purchase his milk.

He started off by only supplying whole milk, as he felt that semi-skimmed was not in line with the core of his business, but he soon realised the only person this was affecting was himself. He added: “I think we have to all remember how much and how well semi-skimmed milk is marketed to consumers, and whether we explain to them that whole milk is equally as healthy or not, they still have their opinions about it.

“We were losing a good chunk of our potential market because of it, and it was at that point I realised I could produce cream, taken from the milk used to produce semi-skimmed, and sell it, too.”

In all, Bryce now supplies 85 shops all over Scotland, including his native Ayrshire, as well as Glasgow, Edinburgh and Oban, and these are all different types of retailers, with a majority of them being coffee shops, which has required him to increase his herd size from 20 to 70 head.

Many of the coffee shops Bryce supplies are attracted to the milk due to the way it froths, and Bryce has since adapted the feeding the cows receive to ensure the milk perfectly complements the coffee, and gives that perfect froth that so many coffee drinkers adore.

Being able to process the milk from start to finish is very important to Bryce, and so he bottles and seals it himself, but it was not easy getting to this point.

“We decided we would like to bottle and seal the milk ourselves, but our first method of putting a seal across the top left the bottles leaking all the time.

“We then visited one of the bigger milk retailers in order to find out how they bottled and sealed their milk, but of course that was going to be an incredibly expensive way of doing it,” he explained.

However, it didn’t take Mr Cunningham long to find a solution - the buying and selling website, eBay.

“eBay has been a wonderful thing for us - we found a device that was used for sealing medicines, and decided it would be our next best bet.

“When it arrived, it worked perfectly, and so we were then able to bottle and seal our milk ourselves, and also make it look like the cartons you find in the supermarkets, which is a great way for marketing the product,” he explained.

Now that the milk business is up and running, Bryce has branched out into some other areas, including organic farming and meat production.

Firstly, he has decided to go organic due to the slightly better price received for produce, and because he believes it may help his milk market. He continued: “Consumers like the idea of organic and “free range”, and I felt it was a move in the right direction for us to do that. We should be complete with the transition within the next year.”

Secondly, he has gone into producing rose veal, which comes from calves that are raised on only forages, which does limit their weight gain, but, Bryce commented, “produces a much better tasting meat.”

This meat is darker in colour, and some additional marbling and fat may be apparent, with the calves usually being slaughtered at about 12-months-old, and generally weighing around 250kg

On why he decided to expand his business further, Bryce commented: “I think it’s good to expand and diversify where and when you can, as it gives you that wee bit of security when other areas of the business aren’t doing as well due to a fluctuation in price.

“I am much busier now than I was before, which I never thought would be possible, but it’s definitely worth it to see the business thrive, and continue to do so.”

And whether or not he ever fancies returning to being a milk producer for one of the dairy companies, he said: “It’s really difficult when you are supplying a company, as the stability isn’t great, and you never really know 100% what your price is going to be, and that is really frustrating - it’s a hard way to do business!

“With the way things are now, I can plan well ahead with my finances, because I can usually predict what each month’s income will be, and the stability is great, and certainly reassuring, considering I have such a young child!”

Bryce’s own shop, which can be found in the conservatory of his home, currently stocks all strains of his own milk, as well as Barwhey’s Cheese, Woody’s Ice Cream, Corrie Mains free range eggs, Grahams honey, Bryson’s tomatoes, Nethergate Larder butcher meat, Mossgiel veal, Everything Chilli preserves, and Flava Shaka spices, all sourced locally, and you can pop along and purchase these at any time.

Bryce’s journey can also be followed on Facebook, by visiting: https://www.facebook.com/pg/MossgielFarm/about/?ref=page_internal, and you can also visit his website at: http://mossgielfarm.co.uk/