Waikato's latest dairy goat farm will house 3000 animals with another barn soon under way. Photo / Supplied
Waikato's latest dairy goat farm will house 3000 animals with another barn soon under way. Photo / Supplied
Investors behind ProTen, the small-town Feilding meat chicken business turned Australian industry heavyweight, have launched a major new venture in the Waikato - this time with a large side-helping of dairy goat milk.
ProTen, founded by Max Bryant nearly 20 years ago, was sold in Australia for $400 million, with$60m returned to loyal longtime investors in his home town Feilding.
Now his son Daniel, who headed Sydney-based ProTen until its sale, has returned to New Zealand to start one of New Zealand's biggest poultry and goat milk farming businesses - with backing from his now-retired dad and a handful of former ProTen names, including former chairman, Feilding businessman John Signal.
Agright GP, nearly 50 per cent owned by managing director Daniel Bryant and 15 per cent by Max Bryant, has so far invested $35m developing barn-raised and free-range meat chicken housing, and with partner New Zealand Dairy Goats, a 14,000sq m complex for 3000 goats at Waharoa, near Matamata.
Milking starts today and the steel has been ordered for a second barn for another 3000 dairy goats, due for commissioning by the end of January.
Agright managing director Daniel Bryant. Photo / Supplied
The chicken venture will produce between 240,000 and 300,000 birds every eight weeks for Ingham's at nearby Waitoa. It will start in early October after being delayed two months by Covid-19.
The goat milk - up to 10 million litres a year - will be processed at the Waikato Innovation Park dryer in Hamilton and sold directly to the open market.
The goat business will create 15 full-time jobs and another 20 part-time roles during kidding. Baby goats are hand-reared and hand fed. The chicken farm will create 2.5 full-time jobs.
While the Bryants "know the chicken market inside out", they've debuted in dairy goat farming via a deal with New Zealand Dairy Goats, founded and chaired by Duncan Milne, an original shareholder in Open Country Dairy, now New Zealand's second-biggest cow milk company. NZDG is also a new company and is headed by Milne's son Robert.
Agright has acquired a nearly 24 per cent stake in NZDG, set to rise to just over 30 per cent by mid-2022 once the second goat barn is operating.
The deal came about after Agright bought the Waharoa venture site - 164ha of potato growing land - for $11m.
"It was far too much for a chicken farm but I was always looking at the options to utilise the balance," said Bryant.
"We initially looked at greenhouses... but couldn't get that off the ground. The dairy goat investment came by way of chance when an information memorandum ended up on my desk and pricked my interest.
"We had surplus land, they were looking for land and equity, and the intensive model of goat farming suited our investment model."
Bryant said Agright sold NZDG land in exchange for 23 per cent, or 3.7 million shares, and cash. NZDG has the option to acquire more land in exchange for further shares and cash, which should happen by June 2022.
Bryant, a director of NZDG, said his father and Signal had also invested separately in NZDG.
Max Bryant, founder of ProTen, which made $60m for small investors when it was sold in Australia. Photo / File
Waikato is the main home of the growing dairy goat milk export industry but NZDG has opted to sell to the open market rather than supply the region's main processor, the successful export co-operative Dairy Goat Co-operative. While its milk payout is attractive, it requires suppliers to buy shares, which would have meant another big capital outgoing.
Bryant said the start-up's original business plan was for it to be a farmgate milk supplier building scale until it could consider its own brand and markets.
"But obviously that's time-consuming, costly and risky. So we want to secure and prove the business model of producing and selling in the open market before going down that route."
NZDG chairman Milne, who's from Wellington, said there was history between the two start-ups.
"We knew the Bryants years ago (through business) and there are quite a few Feilding investors in NZDG.
"We could see the advantages in scale and so decided to private capital raise. People are looking for solid investments and steady solid gains ... None of us were goat experts but we formed an advisory team including a vet and goat experts, and got advice on genetics. And we employed the right people. One of our directors Peter Foyston worked in infant formula in China for 20 years."
Dairy goat farming was attracting interest from bovine dairy farmers, who were under "huge" environmental compliance pressure, Milne said.
Dairy goats and dairy sheep had a much smaller carbon footprint than cows.
"I can see a certain percentage of farmers in sensitive areas going to goats and sheep. We produce a lot of grass in New Zealand which can be concentrated into high quality protein. Goats and sheep can do that."
Goat milk, like sheep product, is naturally A2 and is pitched at lactose intolerant consumers as well as the infant formula market.
Bryant said there are plans to grow the dairy goat operation to 12,000 animals via another 6000 goat operation.
But the next one won't be on such expensive land.
"I think it will still be in the Waikato but potentially on the fringe of really good dairy land.
"It still has to be flat - you need to mow grass every day to take into the goats - and it needs to be good quality. But not necessarily as good quality as we've bought here. And it has to be close to the drying plant."
