LOVE FOOD, HATE WASTE?

We’re always looking for food saving methods and more sustainable products to reduce our food waste, and we’ll continually share our experiences with our community so you can do the same. Through simply changing our thinking around food waste and behaviours at home we all can help reduce food wastage. Read on to learn about some methods of reducing food waste at home and some smart recipes for cutting down on what we throw out. 

Due to the nature of perishable dairy products, there is sometimes a risk of food waste. Luckily our products are quite versatile and can be used for a number of savoury and sweet recipes. Leftover dairy can even be converted into new products! Milk can be turned into yogurt and cheese, yogurt can be turned into quark, and cream can be transformed into butter, just to name a few! Read on to discover some of our favourite food waste reducing tips and recipes.

5 WAYS TO REDUCE FOOD WASTE

Sometimes you’ll find yourself with leftover dairy products approaching their expiry dates. Maybe the kids have been on a school camp all week or you just haven’t got around to eating what’s in the fridge. Well, don’t worry, because we have some food saving tips that can help us all reduce food waste. 

• Plan your week ahead and only buy what you need. Keep an open mind about what you can use as substitutes and don’t be afraid to experiment. Have a ‘leftover meal’ planned in your week to help use food up.

• Schulz team member Jess takes a 'shelfie' of her fridge and freezer so she can double check what she’s already got while at the shops. Jess has been doing this for years and has found that she wastes less food – while saving money, fighting climate change and eating healthier!

• Quite often recipes require quantities that do not match product sizes at the store or farmers market. You can simply adjust the recipe serving size up or down to reduce leftover ingredients. If you double it and find yourself with leftovers, then share them with your neighbour, friends or family. Everyone wins! 

• There’s no need to chuck out nearly expired milk. Milk on-the-turn is a good replacement for buttermilk. You can use it to make pancakes, waffles, biscuits, cake, scones, thicken soup, and even make cheese. You can even add it to your garden soil as a calcium supplement! 

• Start a compost (Composta Australia and Breville’s Food Cycler are great) or find someone to give your food scraps to through apps like Share Waste. Click here for sustainable composting tips.

RECIPES TO REDUCE FOOD WASTE 

We have collected some food saving recipes that have been shared by members of the Schulz community and our Creamery & Cafe chef Hila Perry. Read on to learn how to make your own cultured butter, cheese, cakes and so much more!  

LEFTOVER MILK AND BREAD? Make HILA’S BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING

Bread and butter pudding is so versatile and is great for using up excess bread, overripe fruit and dairy that needs to be used up, pronto! Our Creamery & Cafe pastry chef Hila recently shared her recipe for her classic bread and butter pudding. 

Get Hila’s Bread and Butter Pudding Recipe 

LEFTOVER CREAM AND YOGURT? MAKE BUTTER!

If you’ve got leftover milk, cream or yogurt reaching its expiry then don’t throw out those last few precious dollops, or that last glass of milk! Instead, see how far it goes when you make cultured butter with this simple recipe. 

LEFTOVER QUARK? MAKE A CAKE!

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A post shared by Sarah (@sarahcooksblog)

Quark is one of our favourite products when it comes to reducing food waste, because it is so versatile for both sweet and savoury recipes. You can substitute it for recipes that call for sour cream, thick yogurt, cream or cottage cheese. 

If you’re more of a sweet tooth then check out Sarah Cooks’ German cheesecake recipe. 

LEFTOVER MILK? MAKE CHEESE!

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A post shared by Melissa Leong | FOODERATI (@fooderati)

Masterchef judge Melissa Leong had a go at turning our milk into ricotta and the resulting whey into caramel – and just look at the results!

If you have a cheese making kit then leftover milk is perfect for making halloumi, mozzarella, ricotta and more soft cheeses. An easy place to start is by making cottage cheese or homemade yogurt.

If you have any food waste reducing hacks, tips or tricks we’d love to hear about them – be sure to share with us on our socials!

Winner: Alla Wolf-Tasker Good Food Matters Scholarship 2021

We are proud and excited to share that we have been honoured as part of the national 2021 delicious Harvey Norman Produce Awards with the $5,000 Alla Wolf-Tasker Good Food Matters scholarship! The scholarship, established by Alla Wolf-Tasker in 2017, provides support to producers who champion sustainable good food practices.

For us, the scholarship will support further development of our Milk In Glass product. Travel permitting, we’ll visit like-minded dairies and other producers who are packaging in glass, around Australia and New Zealand, to exchange learnings and insights.

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Alla Wolf-Tasker is a long-standing judge of the delicious Harvey Norman Produce Awards, and she occasionally guest judges on Masterchef. Alla is best known for her establishment Lake House in Daylesford Victoria, which recently celebrated 30 years as one of Australia’s most highly regarded gourmet retreats, and continues to win numerous accolades within Australia and overseas. 

Reflecting on the judging process, Alla says: “Each year your individual hopes and dreams for real sustainability in food production make for great reading and offer me enormous optimism, but also make the job of selecting a single recipient that much harder.”

“​​This year I’m very pleased to award my goodfoodmatters scholarship of $5k to Schulz Organic Dairy in Vic for further research and development of their brilliant grass to glass initiative.”

Alla Wolf-Tasker

So, some exciting times are ahead for our Milk in Glass journey! As always, we extend our thanks to everyone who has supported us along the way: from your loyal patronage to generous social sharing and kind words of support.

Congratulations to all the national delicious Produce Awards winners this year. We have been recognised among such brilliant company, and in these trying times an acknowledgement like this is especially valued. We were honoured to be nominated and find success as part of this year’s awards, including taking out a gold medal in the dairy category last month for our Organic Full Cream Milk.

Find all the national winners here and in the September 2021 issue of delicious, on sale Thursday, August 19. 

Sign up to our moosletter for the latest updates from our farm below.

Reduce, reuse and recycle with Schulz Organic Dairy

At Schulz Organic Dairy, we’re always on the lookout for ways that we can improve our own footprint on the earth, and help our customers to do the same.

As a producer of perishable dairy products, unfortunately we can’t completely avoid plastic. But rest assured we are making incremental changes almost every day in the way that we operate our business – and we follow the principles of reduce, reuse and recycle as much as possible! 

Read on to learn about some of the ways we are going about reducing, reusing and recycling at Schulz – and find out how you can help too.

Reducing plastic use through Schulz Milk in Glass

In 2018 we launched our award-winning Milk in Glass initiative in Victoria with a hugely successful Pozible campaign. Today, with your support, we are currently saving around 8,500kg of single use plastic per year! As it turns out, this initiative has not just been great for the planet, but also great for our product:

• Each Schulz MIG bottle saves about 40g of plastic 

• Glass keeps the milk colder for longer

• We also think milk tastes so much better in glass!

  Want to learn more about our Milk in Glass initiative? Click here for more information.

Reusing plastic containers: tips and tricks

Our community is extremely innovative when it comes to re-using our yogurt, quark and cream tubs, as well as our regular plastic milk bottles! We’ve heard of them being used for all sorts of things including:

• Craft projects

• Storage vessels in the kitchen or shed

• DIY fermentation projects like sourdough or kefir

• Even as plant/seed raising pots, as irrigation systems and as bird feeders in the garden!

But our favourite comes from a chef friend, who has repurposed our tubs as tiny in-ground compost bin/worm farms. Simply cut out holes into the base and place them in soil around the garden. Once in the ground, fill the tubs with food scraps and pop the lid on, to make your own little underground compost pile! Placed throughout your garden, you’ll be sure to have a lot of happy worms - not to mention happy plants and happy soil - our favourite!

We always love to hear about your reuse hacks, and would love and share them with the community. Simply tag @schulzorganicdairy on Facebook or Instagram.

Recycling Schulz Organic Dairy plastic

Recycling is where things start to get a bit tricky. Did you know only around 10% of the plastic we use every year in Australia actually gets recycled? That’s because not everything you throw into the recycling bin actually makes it into a new product. But there are a few things you can look out for to give those pesky plastic bits their best chance at a new life.

Check your numbers and know your local recycling rules

All recyclable plastic will be marked with a number – but not all numbers are created equal, and you will need to check with your local council to find out which numbers are acceptable for recycling in your home recycling bin. The plastic we use at Schulz Organic Dairy is marked with numbers #2, #4 and #5.

In addition, every council is different when it comes to the size and condition of the plastic that it accepts - sometimes plastic will need to be washed clean, other times not. Some councils will happily accept things like milk bottle lids in the home bin - and, you guessed it, others won’t. So if in doubt, contact your local council. They’ll be happy to hear from you!

Give us back your bronze plastic lids and collars at a local Farmers Market!

As of June 2021, we are working with the good people at The Melbourne Farmers Markets and Rethink Recycling Co-op to pilot a plastic lid collection program at the Alphington Farmers Markets each Sunday. 

How does it work? Just return your Schulz bronze-coloured lids and rings (cleaned and with the white seal removed) to the markets, and Rethink Recycling Co-op will work towards making them into a beneficial new product. 

Our milk bottle lids are made from Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE). Mat Card, Founder and President of Rethink Recycling Co-op says, “LDPE #4 is quite versatile and can be processed through our machines with no issue.” This type of plastic is commonly recycled into new recycling wheelie bins and plastic lumber (often used in landscaping and public spaces). How handy!

We’ll be sure to report back with updates as our partnership with Rethink Recycling Co-op grows.

What about those foam seals?

We do occasionally get asked about the white foam seals underneath the lid of our Milk in Glass. These are necessary due to the nature of glass bottles being imperfectly formed (almost imperceptible to the eye, we know – but true nonetheless!) Unfortunately these are NOT recyclable, so please make sure you remove the seal before placing lids and collars into your recycling bin or lid collection locations.

SCHULZ WINS GOLD

Well, the 2020(1) Tokyo Olympics are just around the corner but we’ve already locked in our Gold Medal! We’re proud to announce that we were awarded a gong for our Schulz Organic Dairy Full Cream Milk at the 2021 delicious Produce Awards. Go team!! It’s been a huge year so recognition for producing an award winning product fills us with so much pride. This is our fifth Gold Medal from these awards in seven years and in 2021 we were the only mainland dairy to be recognised for milk under the dairy category. This award supports our belief that the processes and ethics we practice on our farm translate into quality product, and that makes us very happy! Our friends across the Tasman at Elgaar Farm were also awarded a Gold Medal for their Organic Cream On Top Milk, so *high fives*.

Schulz Organic Dairy Full Cream Milk (with cream on top) 

Our Organic Full Cream Milk is natural and pure, with a rich layer of cream on top due to our choice not to homogenise the milk. The cream content in the milk changes with the seasons, cow lactation, and what the cows graze on. We raise both Friesians and Jerseys, which produce a milk rich in flavour; we’ve worked hard to create a just-right balance of beautiful texture and mouthfeel. Adopting the lowest legal pasteurisation temperature and time also retains the integrity of the milk’s natural flavour. Our full cream milk comes in 1L, 2L and in 1L glass bottles at selected Victorian retailers and Farmers Markets. 

How do the judges determine Gold medallists? 

To determine the winners, each piece of produce is tasted and tested by the delicious. Harvey Norman National Judging Panel. Nice work if you can get it! The 2021 panel included some of the country’s most well renowned chefs and experts. This year’s panel included Alla Wolf-Tasker, Andrew McConnell, Peter Gilmore, Matt Moran, Josh Niland, Matt Stone, Jo Barrett, Lennox Hastie and Danielle Alvarez (all pictured below).

(image from delicious.)

Our friends over at The Alphington Farmers Market were adjudged in the top five outstanding farmers markets in Australia for the second year running by the delicious and Harvey Norman Produce Awards. We have a stall at Alphington every Sunday. Check out Schulz farmers market locations here.

(image from Alphington Farmers Market Facebook.)

Congratulations to this year’s Gold Medallists. The produce they delivered following a time of unprecedented change showed the dedication to their craft and resilience of our Australian farmers, fishermen and artisans. We will join the other Gold Medallists to compete for a National Trophy, with the results revealed in August this year (2021). Fingers crossed! 

To see the full list of the 2021 @deliciousaus Harvey Norman Produce Awards Gold Medallists head here! 

Want to get your hands on our milk? See our retailer list here

What does Schulz contribute towards sustainable farming?

The Schulz family have been farming biodynamically and organically in Timboon for a long time now. Our Founder Simon Schulz’s Opa, Hermann Schulz, launched the vision back in 1972 when he blueprinted his original 240 acre farm to be as sustainable as possible. So, we thought we’d share some of our sustainable and organic practices from our farm. We believe our organic practices along with only using natural ingredients offers a truer product, as nature intended.

Schulz’s organic farming practices

Today on the farm we only use organic farming practices to enhance the vitality of the soil, grass and animals, which means our pastures are chemical, hormone and pesticide free. Creating an organic product is not just a chemical-free tick on the product’s packaging. It is a holistic system of caretaking, growing and handling the things we consume. The whole system is linked. From the soil through to plants, animals, food, people and the environment, everything works together. Our products are grown and processed without the use of synthetic chemicals, fertilisers or GMOs. 

Read on to learn about what farming strategies we use to make the farm work for us and our herd.

How the farm’s layout works for the earth and our girls

Simon’s father Michael implemented the strategic planting of trees between paddocks to provide windbreaks for grass protection, support soil management, and provide wildlife habitat. The trees also offer a refuge for the cows in extreme weather conditions and help manage carbon emissions.

Our herd has access to the best food going round: fresh grass. Each morning and evening the cows are given a fresh paddock. This technique is called ‘cell grazing’, which means our herd rotates around many smaller paddocks on our farm. This allows each paddock to regenerate its precious grasses. At certain times of the year the grass doesn’t grow efficiently, or at all. We manage this by cutting silage (fermented grass) and hay (grass just before going to seed) during the seasons where we have plenty of grass. We then feed this out during other seasons depending on our girls’ needs. During summer and autumn we feed our pastures silage, and in late autumn and winter we spread hay to replenish our farm.

Why does Schulz use compost on its pastures?

Soil plays a crucial role in the creation process of our products – and an important process in creating healthy soil is composting. Composting is a method of reusing waste resources from on and off the farm to replenish nutrients and increase microflora in the pastures. As the cows eat the grass (and remove the nutrients) we must then replace them to balance the soil. 

Our compost piles consist mostly of manures and straw/hay bedding. Spreading compost instead of using chemical fertilisers is just one of the many reasons our pastures are so lush and nutrient dense. Composting also helps us reuse waste (which we are all about!)

We're always looking at ways to continue improving the way we work on the farm. We believe that good farming is synonymous with organic and sustainable farming. If you have seen any innovations or ideas that we should know about, please share them with us in the comments below! We’d love to hear.

FAST FIVE: OUR FAVOURITE HOT CHOCOLATES

As the last of the leaves hang on to the trees and the cold snap whips in, there's no more inviting way to warm up than wrapping your hands around a hot chocolate. Melbourne’s hot chocolate scene is a silky melting pot of flavours and it’s artisan approach makes for a delicious warming cup of goodness. Our fresh, organic, non-homogenised milk is beautifully suited to artisan hot chocolate. To sample the best cups, you just need to know where to go and what to look out for. So, we’ve rounded up the top hot chocolates that the city has to offer and to make at home.

Grounded Pleasures

Grounded Pleasures’ delicious range spans different varieties of cocoa to mint, chilli, orange, cinnamon and more. Craig and Sophie run their family owned business in Ballaarat*. This dynamic duo are passionate about the diverse flavour profiles of cocoa and believe that good cocoa has the complexity of good wine and coffee. They achieve a silky cup of hot choccy through processing their beans with minimal intervention. We love to add a teaspoon of their aromatic cinnamon chocolate to a plunger of coffee when we are sharing a lazy winter afternoon on the farm.
*Grounded Pleasures choose to recognise the historical spelling of Ballaarat

Mork 

Mörk uses the same approach taken by specialty coffee-makers and roasters: respect for the traceability, quality and unique origin of ingredients from bean to cup. So they know where, when and most importantly, how their beans are sourced. Their brewhouse in North Melbourne supplies blended chocolate powder to many of Melbourne’s cafes, and you can also buy to enjoy at home. Be sure to keep your eye out for Mörk and Schulz Organic Dairy milk combos next time you’re in your local cafe ordering! Their hot choccy tip is to use 25g of fresh chocolate and 180ml of milk, whisk and steam to until you get a silky texture.

Nib and Noble 

Looking for something a little more ‘guilt free’? Well sugar free hot chocolates are a thing. Nib and Noble’s hot choccy alternative offers a sugar free blend, which is a perfect sweet treat for the health conscious. Instead, their sugar free organic drinking chocolate is sweetened with xylitol. We love Nib and Noble’s commitment towards producing an organic product while using fair trade ingredients.

@nibandnoble on Instagram

Pana Organic

Want a 100% organic hot chocolate. Well, Pana x Schulz Organic Dairy is the combo you need in your fridge and pantry. Pana Barbounis founded Pana Organic in Melbourne eight years ago. Pana sourced, made, packed and scooted (yes, scooted) around delivering each chocolate bar. Since 2013 he has grown his team, organic chocolate products and logistics to deliver around Australia. We love their Coco Crunch, (which tastes like Jaffa chocolates) with our organic full cream milk (in glass). This nostalgic combo really winds back the clock. Hot tip: to complete the trip add a slice of candied orange to your cup to completely reveal the full flavour of Jaffa chocolates.

@kiahorganics on Instagram

Our own house recipe: 

Schulz Organic Creamery & Cafe Signature Hot Chocolate, by Hila Perry. 

Our pastry chef Hila Perry has shared her hot chocolate recipe from the Schulz Organic Creamery & Cafe for you to enjoy at home. What a legend! It all starts with a ganache base made from Belgian Callebaut chocolate, mixed together with Schulz Organic Cream. Click here to get the recipe!