Regionality reaps dividends for Sonnenalm

The continued survival of small-scale dairies concentrating on regional products is a heartening aspect of European milk processing, offering more employment in often isolated areas and stemming the disappearance of family farms. But survival for these mini-dairies needs either innovative niche products or else some really bright marketing ideas – such as the direct marketing store and cheesemaking school started by Sonnenalm dairy in Austria’s Klein Sankt Paul upland region north of Klagenfurt.

The concept began in 2009 when 13 dairy farmers decided the only way to keep their businesses going was by processing and marketing their own milk. These milk producers put their money in regionality: drinking milk, yogurts, cottage cheese and goat cheeses. A shop in the dairy yard was set up and deliveries started to some local supermarkets, canteens, schools and restaurants. But the winning idea which led to the farmers investing around €2 million of their own money in a new building was the idea of a cheese school along with a visitor centre where milk processing can be viewed from a glassed-off veranda. For €29 per head (schoolchildren €10) visitors can learn the first steps in cheese making over a four hour course. Rising income from direct marketing, the visitor centre and the cheese school is encouraging almost continual expansion: milk throughput has risen from an initial 90,000 kg milk to over one million kg this year. Goat milk processing has expanded in parallel to a current 80,000 kg per year.