A sodden goat farm in eastern Victoria seems a strange site to be mulling over the tropical topic of coconuts.
For one Gippsland couple though, making and selling coconut yoghurt has seen them crack a niche corner of an increasingly diverse dairy market.
“It was been a lot more successful than we had originally anticipated,” admits goat farmer John Gommons.
The end coconut yoghurt product costs $7.50 per 500ml tub, and its raw ingredients have to be flown in from Thailand.
Using their existing plant normally used for goat milk processing, John and Penny Gommons have created a product that caters to a growing lactose-intolerant or dairy-averse crowd.
“Our customer is not necessarily the cow milk user,” says John Gommons.
“Our customer is the person who wants the benefits of dairy, or yoghurt in this case, but actually doesn’t want cow.”
The couple travelled to Thailand to inspect appropriate suppliers of coconut milk and are now able to import the product in bulk.
“We had been using three litre tins, and opening 1000-2000 tins every week, but now we bring it over in bulk. That should make things a lot easier.”
That means nary a coconut has been cracked in Gippsland as part of the product.
“We leave that to people who know how to do that and extract the milk” says Penny Gommons.
Source: ABC