New Zealand's Dairy Goat Co-operative (DGC), based in Hamilton, has announced a partnership with US agribusiness investor AGR Partners to grow its place in the international goat-milk nutrition market, while remaining 100 percent farmer-owned, chair René Burri said.

The investment provides long-term capital to expand DGC's milk supply, grow branded and ingredient sales, develop markets, prepare for re-entry to China and commercialise its research. "With this capital we can move decisively from stabilisation to growth," Burri said. DGC launched its Formula for Success strategy in May last year, aiming to grow infant formula and raise $40 million from new investors.

AGR Partners' Daniel Masters said DGC pioneered goat-milk infant formula, a category now worth US$5.1 billion globally and forecast to grow 8 percent a year, and estimated it would take more than NZ$600 million to recreate DGC's supply chain and Hamilton manufacturing plant.

Photo: Daniel Ventura / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Source: Farmers Weekly NZ