Organic dairies open plant in Germany

Not every large-scale dairy in the German cheese sector managed to survive the millennium’s first decade. One casualty was the cooperative Allgäuland in southern Baden-Württemberg. Despite a flourishing export trade with 40% of cheeses going to Italy and 30% to France from an annual output of 33,600 tonnes, the business wasn’t making a profit and started closing down plants before being finally taken over by Arla Foods in 2010.

Among the many casualties were five organic milk producers around the market town of Tübingen. The price for their output had been reduced substantially during Allgäuland’s troubles and so when the local Tübingen cheesemaking plant finally closed they took the decision to strike out on their own, forming a new company “Tübinger Bio-bauernmolkerei” (The Tübingen Organic Farm Dairy). A deal was forged with Arla which involves the dairy collecting milk from farms and processing it before returning it to the farmers for selling in 1 litre sachets. Around 20 retail outlets in the immediate area sell the product under a new label “Tubio.” The farmers have also started setting up automatic dispensers for the milk in villages that do not have retail points.

Around Tübingen the public has rallied round and invested €300,000, buying shares in a new processing and packaging plant that opened its doors in October 2013. A further €800,000 comes from the regional government and, naturally, from the farmers themselves. Annual processing capacity of the new plant is around 2 m kg. The aim is to start yogurt and quark production too with cash being saved through importing used processing machinery from a closed-down dairy in Croatia.