Tatua delivers a dairy cooperative trifecta

Tatua dairy co-operative has pleased its 109 shareholders with an outstanding year coming from its highest ever financial surplus and milk payout. This is the third outstanding dairy cooperative result, following Fonterra last week and Westland earlier this week.

“It’s a brilliant result and best of all, it’s all coming into the Waikato,” says David Fish, a Tatua shareholder and Federated Farmers member.

“I can tell you the $8.10 kilogram of milk solids (kg/MS) we’re getting for the 2010/11 season is a brilliant result.

“It’s significant the cooperative has retained 58 cents kg/MS from earnings because we’ve got a plant expansion underway. There’s a feeling that we’ll be able to get productivity growth from our farms in order to meet the need for more milk.

“We may be a small cooperative but I tend to think we’re perfectly formed. The members are close to staff and management and we have a strong family feel.

“The thing is that we’re highly adaptive and responsive to the needs of our customers wherever they are in the world. This proves you can build a sizeable global business from the provinces.

“As a Tatua shareholder, I really couldn’t be happier with the way we’re positioned,” Mr Fish concluded.