Your Local: August 2021

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Health

Cooloola flows on

RICHARD ‘DICK’ SCHRODER BELIEVES IN PRODUCING “QUALITY” MILK. ALWAYS HAS, ALWAYS WILL!

EVEN to the extent of risking a blockade at the entry to his Dagun milk processing factory, when in 1999 he stood up to his neighbours, friends and the might of the Queensland dairy industry to deliver his new, independent high-quality product to its retail destinations.

That’s fortunate for the people of Noosa and surrounds, because his action ensured his brand names of Cooloola Milk and Eumundi Noosa Milk are still available on supermarket shelves today.

But while his milk is slightly more expensive than the mainstream brands, you

certainly get what you pay for: pure milk from the best Jersey cows in the country, properly processed to preserve its best natural ingredients.

“I’ve been doing this [selling these products] for 22 years,” Dick said.

He was the first to start, or re-start,

independent milk supplies to the region.

“The other farmers were going to blockade the gates. The milk companies had petitions for farmers to sign.

“Other farmers were going to blockade the driveway so I wouldn’t get the truck out. Continue page 4

“I said to [brother] Neil to get the bulldozer – we might need it in the morning.

“I was just going to bulldoze them into a heap.”

Fortunately, the forces backed off and the blockade plan fizzled.

“It was pretty savage. For a long time, we were ostracised in our area.”

It’s all water – or milk – under the bridge now, but back then, the dairy industry in Queensland was in turmoil, with ‘Big Milk’ sowing divide-and-conquer seeds among the farming community, in a bid to split the dairy co-op system.

Dick had already been in the dairy business most of his life, apart from stints working elsewhere when milk wasn’t bringing home the bacon, so to speak.

The family moved to the Dagun area in August 1973 from Kureelpa near Nambour where they supplied North Coast Milk which then became Suncoast Milk.

“When we came to Dagun we joined the Wide Bay Co-op and lived through all the amalgamations,” Dick said.

But the then-Prices Justification Tribunal - that was meant to ensure fair farm-gate

returns to farmers - “crashed out”, Dick said. “We spent thousands getting all the prices through then it was all dropped at the drop of a hat,” he said.

“I became very disillusioned at industry organisations after that; they were useless.”

In the mid-seventies, to make ends meet, Dick took up work at the Cooroy Bakery.

“I’d done pastry cooking before. Thebakery paid really good money by comparison.

“I had done roustabout work even when we were farming, doing jobs others didn’t want to do.”

In time, he and his brother Neil – to this day the only two in the family – were able to develop the farm and buy more blocks.

“Then I got into milk tankers for a while,” Dick said.

“It was really good. I had always had an interest in trucks. Still do.

“I ran that for 15 years, but then it began to get very political.