World Milk Day was established by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations to recognise the importance of milk as a global food in 2001.

Australian dairy is a $13 billion farm, manufacturing and export industry according to Dairy Australia.

The industry has a farmgate value of $4 billion annually, with more than 6000 Australian dairy farms producing around 9.7 billion litres of fresh creamy milk a year.

The industry directly employs nearly 40,000 Australians on farms and in factories, while more than 100,000 Australians are indirectly employed in linked service industries.

Berry Rural Co-op general manager Kara Duncan said the day highlights the important role farmers, and in particular dairy farmers, play around the world.

“We use the day to celebrate the fact we are playing a part in feeding our country,” Mrs Duncan said.

“Every day farmers get themselves out of bed to feed the country.”

South Coast Dairy, a subsidiary of Berry Rural Co-operative, has been processing its own products in its new plant in Berry for almost 12 months.

“The processing facility will celebrate its first birthday on June 25,” Mrs Duncan said.

“Milk can come off the farm this afternoon, is bottled the next day and in the shops the following day. It is a quick turnaround process and best of all it’s all local and fresh.

“Being farmer owned, money also returns to the local community.

“Our first 12 months of processing has been really great. It takes time to find a groove but the guys in the factory are doing a great job.”

She said the processing plant was producing around 50,000 lites a week.

Products are available in Woolworths and Coles supermarkets from Wollongong to Merimbula and over the Highlands, while through Harris Farm Markets, products are also available in Sydney, the Central Coast and Orange.

“We also have products available in independent supermarkets and Friendly Grocers as well as supplying a number of coffee shops,” she said.

“We also process Harris Farm Pure Pastures Jersey range of milk.”

And it’s not just milk with South Coast Dairy also producing a variety of creams and yoghurts and according to Mrs Duncan is “developing a few other interesting products.”

The company has had a successful year winning seven gold, a silver and a bronze medal at the 2017 Sydney Royal Show Cheese and Dairy Awards across the lite, skim and full cream milk and cream products, and followed that up with two gold and four silver medals at the Dairy Industry Association of Australia (DIAA) dairy product competition.