Inglenook Dairy milks Melbourne awards

ONE of the region’s premier dairy producers has swept up accolades in this year’s Melbourne Royal Dairy Awards.

Staff at Dunnstown’s Inglenook Dairy took home the Best Cream award for their Inglenook Dairy Cream, as well as six other medals.

Owner, Rachael Peterken, said their wins were a recognition of her team’s expertise.

“It’s recognition for their hard work,” she said. “We pride ourselves on producing a premium product and this is the proof we do.

“It’s a great reward for the team to acknowledge all their hard work.”

Beginning as a family-run business, Inglenook Dairy has grown to 12 staff members based at the company’s Dunnstown location, and three more at their Scotts Creek farm.

The daughter of a dairy farmer, Ms Peterken said she started the business with her family as a response to the price of raw milk.

“It was dwindling and pretty bad,” she said. “Back then it was around 35 cents a litre which was pretty much impossible to continue to do so we decided to bottle our own milk.

“I remember getting excited when we delivered two crates to Wilson’s Fruit and Veg who were our first customers. Now we distribute to not just Ballarat but Kyneton, Bendigo, Castlemaine, all around.”

As well as winning for best overall cream, Ms Peterken said it was especially exciting to receive a medal for all seven of their items, all of which were submitted in the awards.

“We won four gold for our full cream, low fat, and full top milk and our cream, and we get a silver for both butters and a bronze for yoghurt,” she said.

“We’ve never had a medal for every product which I think is very special.

“We’ve won champion milk for the low fat as well and were listed as the top three at the Australian Grand Dairy Awards which to enter you have to receive gold from another competition.

“We’ll be able to enter four into that this year.”

Inglenook Dairy’s items were part of 207 total entries with a judging panel of nine industry experts.