University Dairy Farms Score Big on Quality

People queue up in a long line on a cold, drizzly afternoon at the agricultural products retail outlet on Zhou­shan Street, inside the National Taiwan University campus. They’re waiting to buy milk, of which the NTU dairy operation produces only about 350 bottles per day.

Mrs. Chen, who has come all the way from Bei­tou in northern Tai­pei, is a big believer: “The milk at NTU tastes really good, and it’s inexpensive. And the university watches over quality like a hawk, so you don’t have to worry about it having additives or drug residues.”

Tunghai University milk, made only from fresh, high-quality raw milk, has built up a faithful following in the home delivery market.

The NTU Experimental Farm, where the milk is produced, has one of the oldest dairy operations in Taiwan, dating back to its establishment in 1924 as the Practice Farm of Tai­hoku High School of Agriculture and Forestry. This school was merged in 1928 into the newly established Tai­hoku Imperial University (the predecessor of today’s NTU). After Japanese rule ended, the Practice Farm was renamed the NTU Experimental Farm, which today is under the NTU College of Bio­Resources and Agriculture.

The NTU Experimental Farm covers an area of 30.37 hectares and includes a Horticulture Plot, an Agronomy Plot, and an Animal Husbandry Plot. The smallest of these is the Animal Husbandry Plot, which occupies only about two hectares. But it still manages to generate NT$13 million in operating revenues per year for the university. The unsung heroines behind this success are the dairy cattle, who busily lactate day after day.

Professor Chen Ming-ju, chairman of NTU’s Department of Animal Science and Technology, serves as director of the dairy farm. She notes that the farm imported some Holstein cattle from the Netherlands back in the days of Tai­hoku Imperial University, but had very few cows in the early years. It wasn’t until 1951, when the US donated 30 head of cattle to NTU, that the dairy farm began to engage in organized production of milk.

The farm now has about 50 head of cattle, of which 18–20 are currently in lactation. Daily production averages 350–400 liters, so the facility is probably the smallest dairy farm in Taiwan.

If a dairy cow is to stay healthy and produce superior milk, it has to be fed high-quality roughage, supplemented by feed concentrates such as grains and brewer’s draff. Shown here is the dairy farm at National Taiwan University.

Production volume may be low, but the delicious taste makes a big impression, and the bottled product sells for just NT$75 a liter, about 10% below the going market price. With satisfied customers spreading the word, loyal buyers are growing in number.

But, enthusiastic customers notwithstanding, milk from the NTU dairy farm actually differs in no way from store-bought milk in terms of nutrition. It’s not any more “pure,” as its fans claim. The secret to its good taste lies elsewhere, in the way the milk is processed and pasteurized.

Professor Chen, who is among Taiwan’s foremost experts in milk processing, explains that regardless whether it is from NTU or a large dairy operation, all milk sold in Taiwan is made from 100% pure raw milk. The former comes from the NTU dairy farm, while the latter is purchased from dairy farms all over Taiwan.

Before making a purchase, a dairy producer tests samples of the raw milk very carefully, because if any drug residues are found, the entire truckload must be discarded and the loss borne by the dairy farmer. Needless to say, dairy farmers are deadly serious about quality control.

After a dairy producer receives a shipment of raw milk, it must be pasteurized before it can become the product we’re all familiar with. To make sure their milk won’t go bad on store shelves, the big milk producers use the same ultra-high temperature (UHT) pasteurization method used to produce shelf-stable milk. The raw milk is heated to between 125 and 135°C for 0.5–4 seconds to kill off bacteria. But the NTU dairy farm uses high-temperature short-time (HTST) pasteurization, with the milk heated to 80°C for 20–30 seconds.

As Chen explains, the good thing about HTST pasteurization is that it better preserves the original flavor of the milk, and is less likely to destroy such beneficial things as whey proteins, immunoglobulins, and lactoferrin. The downside is that the pasteurized milk is a bit bland and has a relatively short shelf life.

Also noteworthy is the fact that the NTU dairy farm doesn’t adjust the composition of its milk. It never changes the fat content of the raw milk, for example, nor does it add oligosaccharides or other ingredients to improve the flavor. Most of the big producers, in contrast, remove all fat from the raw milk and then add it back in differing amounts to produce a range of different products: “extra fat” milk (at least 3.8% fat); whole milk (3.0–3.8%); low-fat milk (0.5–1.5%); and skimmed milk (under 0.5%).

Chen laughs: “Milk from the NTU dairy farm is as close as it comes to raw milk.”

Stalls for the dairy goats at National Chiayi University feature raised floors with grates to provide for easy cleaning of feces and urine. The clean living environment facilitates the production of delicious milk with hardly any trace of the rank “goat taste” that people tend to find offensive.

The dairy farms of National ­Chung ­Hsing University and Tung­hai University are located in central Taiwan, which has a moderate climate. Both these farms produce and sell their own milk. Tung­hai runs the best-known university dairy operation in Taiwan, and the only one with sales volume to rival a big commercial operation.

Established in 1971, the Tung­hai University Experimental Farm covers an area of 50 hectares, or roughly one-third of the school campus. It is the biggest university-run farm in Taiwan.

Professor Wu Yun-chu, who serves on the management board of the university’s Department of Animal Science and Biotechnology, explains that the farm was set up to make use of unused land on the spacious campus. In 1975, the school established a Department of Animal Science to train livestock management professionals.

In 1982, Tung­hai University established a modern milk processing plant. Another dairy plant in the Tai­chung area had closed down not long before, leaving dairy farmers in central Taiwan with nowhere to sell their milk, so the Ministry of Education asked Tung­hai to buy the closed plant. As a condition for their consent, university officials demanded that they be allowed to sell their products from the plant in mass quantity.

After a bit of haggling, and with the assistance of the Ministry of Education, the Tunghai University dairy farm finally got the plant up and running as a registered profit-seeking enterprise. It was the only experimental dairy plant in Taiwan with the capacity to operate as a commercial entity.

In the early years the Tung­hai dairy plant, besides producing milk under its own brand name, was also a contract producer for the Land Bank of Taiwan, Country House (the producer of Sun­kist beverages in Taiwan), and Carre­four hypermarkets. In its heyday, Tung­hai University sold NT$400 million worth of its own-brand milk per year, and commanded a 5% market share.

Professor Wu relates that Taiwan’s authorities in years past did a relatively poor job of checking the quality of milk, and some makers would cut the product with water or powdered milk. But Tung­hai University never stooped to such trickery. They were careful not to sully the school’s reputation, so their stable quality earned the trust of consumers.

The dairy operation at National Taiwan University uses HTST pasteurization to preserve the milk’s original taste and nutritional value. It also makes milks flavored with passion fruit, apple, and the like.

However, the Tunghai milk operation was still quite small in comparison with the big commercial firms, which put it at a considerable disadvantage in price competition. As time went by, losses mounted, so the school eventually decided ten years ago to cease operations as a wholesale supplier of milk.

As Wu explains, dairy cattle are temperate-zone animals which lactate less in the summer, while supply exceeds demand in the winter. The high production volumes of the big makers enable them to use flexible pricing and nimble marketing strategies to regulate supply. For a small player, however, this is not an option, which is why the big three dairy products manufacturers—Uni-President, Wei ­Chuan Foods, and ­Kuang ­Chuan Dairy—now command a combined market share of around 80%.

In 2003, Tung­hai University withdrew from wholesaling and switched instead to home delivery, with the quantity of its milk production planned in advance. Under this system, the school adjusts the volume of milk production for the coming half year to match home delivery orders. This approach makes it possible to avoid volatile swings of supply between summer and winter, and eliminates the need to pay any attention to the marketing strategies of the big makers.

But the ready availability of milk in stores makes it difficult to persuade consumers to switch to regular home delivery. Moreover, due to the extra transportation cost, bottled milk from the Tunghai dairy operation costs NT$98 per liter, about NT$15 over the going market price. It is the most expensive milk in Taiwan.

“We rely on quality and service to win over customers,” says Wu, who notes that the school’s dairy farm currently has between 80 and 100 cattle, and also contracts to buy raw milk from top-quality dairy farms in nearby Changhua and Miaoli counties. The raw milk that arrives each morning is turned into finished milk by the afternoon and delivered the next day to customers, who are thus assured of a fresh product.

In order to promote sales of their superior products, marketing firms working for the Tung­hai University dairy farm often organize free milk tasting events at government agencies, companies, and big apartment complexes. This slow-but-steady approach has so far generated 50,000 delivery service subscribers, annual operating revenues of NT$100 million, and a market share of 0.5%. Even though the farm’s operating revenues are far below what they once were, careful management of costs and production volume has actually increased profits. In 2012, for example, net earnings came to NT$15 million, all of which went into to a fund used for purchasing new desks and chairs for students.

Tunghai University milk, made only from fresh, high-quality raw milk, has built up a faithful following in the home delivery market.

National ­Chiayi University, located on the Jia­nan Plain, was originally founded in 1919 as the ­Chiayi Agriculture and Forestry Public School, the first school in Taiwan to specialize in agriculture and forestry. After the end of Japanese rule, it was renamed the Taiwan Provincial ­Chiayi Agri-Vocational School, and later the Taiwan Provincial ­Chiayi Junior College of Agriculture. In 1997, the college was upgraded again to become the National ­Chiayi Institute of Technology, before a merger in 2000 resulted in the formation of today’s National Chiayi University (NCYU).

The milk from NCYU is produced by the College of Agriculture’s Animal Research Farm, and at NT$65 per bottled liter is perhaps the least expensive milk in Taiwan. The Animal Research Farm occupies only five hectares, yet raises 100 dairy cattle, 100 dairy goats, 400 pigs, and 800 chickens, so it’s actually a rather large operation.

Generally speaking, dairy cattle are more resistant to cold than heat, but the cattle at NCYU are big milk producers despite the warm, sunny weather that characterizes southern Taiwan all year round. And the fat content, moreover, is consistently high.

Wu ­Chean-ping, an associate professor in the NCYU Department of Animal Science and director of the Animal Research Farm, explains with a chuckle: “Our cattle are a bunch of happy campers. If you just let them eat healthy, live in comfort, and keep in a good mood, they’re naturally going to produce more and better milk.”

Having specialized from the very beginning in agriculture, NCYU attaches considerable importance to livestock management and student internships. According to Wu, third-year students in the Department of Animal Science divide into four-person teams and adopt a newborn calf to care for. Every day, the team members feed the calf, record its defecations and urinations, clean its stall, and perform other such tasks. When not in class, they also take turns walking the calf. It eventually grows into an adult cow and is artificially inseminated. After gestation and birth, the cow becomes a dairy producer. The students are there every step of the way.

Milk produced at university dairy farms is very popular with consumers thanks to the professional expertise of the universities and their rigorous adherence to high quality standards. Shown here are the Tunghai University dairy farm and some of the products made there.

In addition to stressing the importance of loving care for the cattle, NCYU also pays very close attention to their diet. Wu points out that many dairy farmers, in order to increase lactation, frequently raise the percentage of feed concentrates—such as grains, bran, and brewer’s draff—that they give their animals. But a dairy cow that eats too high a proportion of concentrates often develops problems in its legs and digestive tract, and sometimes even has difficulty reproducing. To keep a dairy cow healthy, high-quality roughage must be made the mainstay of its diet. In addition to hay imported from abroad, NCYU also makes corn silage out of maize stalks purchased from local farmers. This ensures a very healthy and balanced diet, and reduces what NCYU has to pay for hay.

With the excellent management techniques at the NCYU dairy farm, the cows there produce an average of more than 25 kilos of milk per day, and the fat content of 4% puts it in a class with the best milk on the market. Total daily production at the farm averages around one ton of raw milk, of which two-thirds is pasteurized by the HTST method, with the natural composition left untouched. The rest of the raw milk is sold to nearby dairy producers. The farm also puts out over 300 liters of goat’s milk per day. In all, it’s a first-rate operation in terms of both quantity and quality.

The milk so caringly and professionally produced by the university instructors and students at NTU, Tung­hai, and NCYU has won the trust of a large number of consumers. The next time you have a chance to stop in at one of these schools, you might think about trying out the milk they sell. You’re sure to be glad you did.

At National Chiayi University, students divide into teams that adopt a newborn calf to care for. Over time, a strong emotional bond is formed. The animals grow up happy and healthy, and become consistently prolific producers of high-quality milk.

Milk produced at university dairy farms is very popular with consumers thanks to the professional expertise of the universities and their rigorous adherence to high quality standards. Shown here are the Tunghai University dairy farm and some of the products made there.