News / Cream in new cartons to wow back shoppers
SHETLAND Farm Dairies has reached another milestone in its attempts to win back local customers.
The company’s newly packaged range of single, double cream and whipping cream was delivered to local shops this week.
Ever since manager Gerry Byers took over the day-to-day running of the dairy more than three years ago, he has been working on restructuring the business and is slowly regaining the loyalty of local shoppers.
The issue of leaky milk containers was finally resolved in June last year when a new filling line was installed.
This week, the small co-operative has gone one step further by rebranding its cream range.
“I do feel that Shetland Farm Dairies took Shetland people for granted in the past and didn’t solve the problems. We lost business because of that.
“By going for new packaging I have been trying to move this place forward with the times. I want to win those customers back again.
“I take pride in what I do, and I like good presentation. A quality product needs to be presented properly,” he said.
The company, owned by local dairy farmers, has now done exactly that with its new cream cartons hitting the shelves just before Christmas.
Byers said: “They have a screw top lid to stop the cream from drying out once opened and to prevent those annoying spillages that so easily happen at this time of year when the fridge is packed.”
Two years ago, a campaign to save Shetland’s local milk made the local headlines when it emerged that the islands’ dairy industry could fold.
This threat seems to have receded somewhat but Byers stresses that supporting the local dairy industry remains as important today as it was then.
And the Gremista-based dairy is an integral part of the overall milk sector: without it there would be no dairy farmers and no local milk production.
Byers added that locally produced milk was a different and more natural product than the milk exported from south.
“You cannot compare Shetland Farm Dairies milk with milk from the UK. Yes, it is milk but it is an entirely different process.
“Whereas our milk is pasteurised and at its most natural state, milk from the mainland goes through three different processes: it goes through a ‘bactofuge’ which removes bacteria; it is pasteurised; and it goes through a micro-filter which removes nearly all the goodness out of it. It is more like UHT milk,” he said.
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