In 1955 Giuliano Lorenzetti arrived in Australia from Italy with a bag, a little money and a big heart. He’d grown up in Italy on a dairy farm and was armed to the teeth with experience and enthusiasm. By 1974 he and his wife Rita had purchased a dairy farm in Lobethal, where they produced high quality milk from a small, healthy and happy herd of cows. With vision and knowledge, the Lorenzetti family have turned this local and natural product into a successful and thriving business, known today as “Tweedvale”. Giuliano explained that their success lies in their practices; a small herd means more attention per cow, healthy cows means better milk and high standards mean a better product.

Giuliano recognised a trend within the dairy industry and knew that his dairy had to diversify in order to survive. It’s his firm belief that a bigger herd is not necessarily better, so instead of producing more milk for other companies, they bought a Pasteurising machine in 1988 and began distributing their own milk. They sold full cream milk in bulk to boutique cheese makers in Adelaide and by 1992 they were selling bottled milk to café’s, bakeries, hotels and restaurants. The Lorenzetti family built a new dairy in 1996, and their son Carlo joined them on a full time basis in the management and operations of the dairy. For health reasons, Giuliano had to stop milking their cows in 2005, but they continued to purchase milk from other local dairy farmers who had the same ethos as themselves; small herds, clean dairies, happy cows and a high quality product. This is the beauty of the remaining dairies in the hills, they are small and stable, providing high quality milk, therefore the taste of Tweedvale is the taste of the hills.

In 2007, Tweedvale were lucky enough to gain a small business grant from the government and now they employ 6 full timers and 2 part timers. They have a whiz-bang cream separator and a brand new pasteuriser which has allowed them to expand their product range from full cream milk to also include reduced fat milk and a luxurious cream, worthy of any prize winning apple crumble or pavlova.

A lot of milk purchased these days is a mass produced, high food-mile*, standardised product, owned in the most part by international conglomerates. This is not the case with Lobethal’s Tweedvale Milk. Everything is local from the lush grass the cows eat, all the way to the customers who buy the milk from local supermarkets, deli’s, café’s, restaurants, hotels, bakeries and other businesses throughout the hills.

Tweedvale Milk is not homogenised, therefore you can taste the full flavour of the milk and the food-miles* are low which makes it an altogether cleaner and greener product.

Here is something to consider; the milk you could be drinking tomorrow may have come from the cows in the paddock that you drove by, yesterday. Tweedvale products are available throughout the hills, see the ad. in this publication or just call the dairy on 8389 6681.

*The popular “food-miles” term is used to gauge the distance food travels from farm to plate, thus implying an environmental impact of that distance.