Watch: Joy as Holy Cow milk sales resume

After a tough 14 months, beloved Port Chalmers dairy farmer Merrall MacNeille is finally selling milk again.

Mr MacNeille has come a long way since booking his cows for slaughter 14 months ago after a heifer tested positive for tuberculosis and he was ordered to stop selling raw milk.

Since deciding to keep his herd, he and his wife, Alex, had gone through a rigorous process of getting Ministry of Primary Industries approval to sell pasteurised milk.

They finally got it on Monday and started selling milk the next day.

Marion McMullan (5) samples some of the first milk produced since Port Chalmers dairy farm and milk retailer Holy Cow restarted after a 14-month absence. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery

Mr MacNeille said they would not have been able to resume selling without the help of people who volunteered with financial assistance, feed and labour.

''We had neither the skills or the money to do it entirely by ourselves.''

He believed the loyalty to his business was about more than just the quality of the milk.

''I think it's a reaction to big factory farms and milk being shipped all over and split up into components and put back together.

''A lot of the customers know the individual cows.

''So there is a real connection there as well.''

Customers had already started trickling back and he was looking forward to numbers climbing further as word spread he was back in business.

''It's our social life, people coming to get milk, and it's been pretty lonely around here for a little more than year.''

Mr MacNeille had been selling raw milk from the farm since 2003 under the brand name Holy Cow.

He was ''overjoyed'' to be back and felt privileged to be able to continue after all looked lost just over a year ago.

''It's a joy being able to make a living with the animals.''

- Otago Daily Times