80 years after his grandfather helped launch Wales’s oldest farmers’ cooperative John Hughes and his family are still leading the way with plans to modernise the farm and increase milk production.
Now he and his son Sion (28) are looking to the future and reaping the rewards of building a new milking parlour at their farm in Ynysgain Fawr.
The new milking parlour houses the Dairymaster 20:40 swing-over rapid-exit system and a new 12,000L tank, along with a new slurry pit.
It’s hoped the investment will future-proof the 265ac operation at Ynysgain for many years to come.
Yields have already risen by 10% and the other bonus is that the time spent milking is down from nine hours to three hours every day thanks to the sophisticated efficiency of the new computerised system.
The investment was made possible thanks to a Sustainable Production Grant of £200,000, European money that came via the Welsh Government, on top of the £300,000 the family put into the development.
The ultimate aim is to increase production from the Holstein-Friesian herd but the new kit has brought other benefits too.
‘You can’t put a price on the quality of life’
John said: “This equipment and the slurry pit has cost £500,000. It’s not something we would have been able to do were it not for the grant, and we’re very grateful.
“Ear tags enable each cow to be identified as it enters the milking parlour and the monitors in the collars on each cow can tell how much they have been eating and how much milk they produce every day so the amount of feed they are given is adjusted accordingly to optimise the yield and the quality of the milk.
“The system flags up if a cow is not well and if a cow is ready for a bull it pulls it into a pen for us. All the information can be seen at a glance and behaviour alerts come through to our smartphones.
“Dairymaster said it would expect to see an increase in yield of 5%, but I would say we’re closer to 10%.
For us as a family, it’s made an incredible difference because we used to milk for almost nine hours a day and now we milk for three hours.
“If we save six hours in the milking, well it’s six hours for Sion and for me too. We get 12 hours a day really. You can’t put a price on the quality of life. “
That’s music to the ears of managers at South Caernarfon Creameries at Rhydygwystl, near Chwilog.
They need more milk coming through to cater for the growing demand for their cheese that uses 100% Welsh milk from their 130 farmer members.
John is also the creamery’s poster boy as the star of a new TV advertising campaign to promote their popular Dragon brand that’s sold in a host of outlets including Sainsbury, Morrisons, Lidl and Tesco.
Creamery investment
As it celebrates its 80th anniversary, the creamery is also recruiting new farmer members, following the £13.5 million investment in their new cheese production and packing plant at Chwilog, under the leadership of Managing Director Alan Wyn Jones, who is now in his 10th year in the role.
The creamery’s investment has resulted in a 25% increase in production in less than two years, and the winning of several major new contracts.
Sales reached a record high of £45.1 million for the year to March 2018 and are expected to hit over £50 million in the current year.
This resulted in members being paid one of the best milk prices in Wales for the second year running.
According to John, the success of South Caernarfon Creameries is beyond the wildest dreams of his grandfather Hugh Hughes, his grandmother, Mary, and his father, Owen Gwynant Hughes, along with his uncle, Humphrey, who moved to Ynysgain in 1943.
For his part, Sion is proud to be a fourth generation member of South Caernarfon Creameries.
He said: “My great-grandfather was one of the first ever members to send milk to the creamery in 1938 when it started and then from Ynysgain when they moved here in 1943.
“We sell our milk exclusively to the creamery and we wouldn’t take it anywhere else.
Whatever the creamery makes comes back to us as producers. We own it as producers and it’s been a blessing to a lot of farms.
“It’s put a lot of farms on their feet, and we should be very thankful to our pioneering forefathers who started it.”
Managing director Alan Wyn-Jones added: “Forward-thinking farmers like John and Sion and their family are the backbone of South Caernarfon Creameries.
“They have given us the platform to develop new, award-winning products that are driving our growth.
“After 80 years, our ambition to grow and add value is as strong as ever but this can only be achieved with our farmer members having a similar mindset.”
