About Just Milk Group
Just Milk is a dairy management company based in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The Just Milk Group manages 15 dairies on 10 units across the Eastern Cape with total Cows in Herd of approximately 17,000 cows.
Just Milk is a unifying brand and not a single corporate entity that operates on farms with varying land ownership and profit share structures. This model has allowed land investors an opportunity to gain exposure to dairy farming without the necessary management capabilities and required initial stock numbers while allowing the Just Milk Group the opportunity to create scalable, people-oriented management systems that result in low-cost, high-yield dairy farming operations.
The Just Milk Group prides itself on three pillars of core competency:
People
- Our dynamic management teams are carefully selected and trained within a personal growth focussed environment.
- Our student programme has been developed to support a pipeline of talent that will continue to create young farmers who are capable of filling management positions across the group.
- Our scale of operations allow the Group to accelerate management growth through strategic placements and movements across farms.
Cows
- The “Just Milk Cow” is a cross Jersey-Friesland using predominantly New Zealand and Australian CRV genetics.
- Very few animals have been brought into the herd from outside, resulting in selective breeding and an optimal animal suited to the conditions of dairy farming in the Eastern Cape.
- Cows in excess of current requirements are reared annually to stock potential growth opportunities.
Controls
- All rotary dairies have been built by Northfield Engineering and make use of Waikato Milking Systems and Afimilk herd management systems which allow us to dictate and track individual cow diet and performance.
- We have built controls around these systems to ensure high levels of data integrity that feed back to the head office in Grahamstown for analysis, from where the information is shared across the group.
- Preventative controls ensure the safeguarding of assets, providing comfort to stakeholders at a distance and further enabling the ability to grow.
Just Milk Timeline
1995Sea Rest Farm
Alexandria, Super Pro Dairy2004Riverside Dairy
Cookhouse, Number Two Piggeries2008Dalfreuch Dairy
Cookhouse, Dalfreuch Dairy Partnership2012Galla Hills Dairy
Queenstown, Number Two Piggeries2014Greenside Dairy
Tsitsikamma, Number Two Piggeries2016Leeway Dairy
Cookhouse, Number Two Piggeries2016Bosfontein Farm
Alexandria, Dalfreuch Dairy Partnership2017Queens Valley Dairy
Queenstown, Queens Valley Dairy2019Ida Dairies
Ida, Number Two Piggeries2021Mountain View Dairy
Mountain View, Number Two Piggeries
Management Services
Just Milk offer the ideal management solution for owners of irrigated land in search of dairy management expertise and/or lacking access to dairy cows.
The addition of a cheese factory to the Group additionally secures a guaranteed route to market which can otherwise be difficult to secure in times of national milk surplus.
Our systems focus on ensuring we can bring the best quality people, cows and practices onto any potential platforms to optimise returns per hectare.
We place significant emphasis on partnerships and do not enter into any arrangements we cannot see being mutually beneficial to all parties involved.
Meet the Team
Edgar & Lynda Brotherton
Co-Founders
