Our Team 2010: f.l.t.r. Elfriede Mayer, Josef Mayer, Karin Pichlmayer, Jeannine Pichler, Andreas Geyer

Past

The idea that local farmers supply schools with milk products in connection with starting a deal with fruit preparations and excipients was already born in 1995 during a meeting of Styrian school milk farmers. One participant of this meeting was Ing. Mayer, dairy master and former company manager of the dairy of Weiz.

Rationalisation measures of dairies and the dying of smaller dairies effected that schools were faced with the fact to get no school milk. The children’s desire for fresh school milk was unmistakable and so some farmers near the schools decided to produce fresh fruit milk and fruit yoghurts in high quality with our fruit preparations and to supply even smallest schools this way.

Present

Because of our engagement we already supply a large part of the Austrian school milk farmers, whose number increases from year to year because of the prospering of the market.

We support school milk farmers and those, who want to become ones, with our advice and our products to establish another source of income so that they won’t be dependent on big concerns that much. Advice is a huge priority with us and the career of Mr. Ing. Josef Mayer (dairy master and former manager of the dairy of Weiz) is of course an unestimable advantage for us and our customers. Furthermore we provide trial product samples and samples as well as all specifications and certificates for our customers. We want to keep our high quality level by special application tips and individual advice.

The increasing quality awareness of consumers, the wish for regional products and the increased demand for organic quality had a positive effect on our customers. The entry in the school milk production made it possible that several farmers were able to double their previous sales and to open new business fields too. Some school milk farmers, who began with 25 kg of fruit preparations, meanwhile consume already 500 kg per month.

Product ideas such as yoghurt drinks, fruit and apple drinks, as well as fruit whey drinks have drastically increased the added value of our customers too. Especially yoghurt drinks and fruit whey drinks are steadily gaining popularity. Sales of milk products have risen sharply again even in schools as a result of the engagement of the local school milk farmers. Milk products are in again.

Unfortunately we haven’t been spared from strokes of fate. In July 2003 our cold storage burnt down to the ground. After being accommodated provisory in a fruit storehouse for six months, we could finally move into a cold storage resp. depot, which was especially adapted for our needs, in January 2004. We were able both to double the cooling area and to install an own dry storage. To react on customer wishes more flexible and faster we vacated our two previous office locations in summer 2005 and we extended our cold storage with a two-storey office section. This new location, where products and administration are concentrated, made it possible, that we could create a solid basis for the future of our business.

Future

We will continue this path and we want to broaden our range of products towards full-range suppliers. Therefore we also have PET-BOTTLES and plastic buckets in our program since March 2004 and in autumn 2006 PP-beakers for yoghurt and cheese products were added. The aim is also to increasingly place the products of our customers in the big food product markets and thus to facilitate customers the choice between local products of local producers and the products of the neighboring countries. In this field we will have to do a lot of work, in particular persuading.

From this point of view there are a lot of beneficiaries: we earn our keep, the school milk farmers are able to establish another source of income and the customers can buy local products from farmers they know. And that at a reasonable price.