For Shane Mieglich, running a clean dairy is more than good practice – it’s a science. The Adelaide Hills dairy farmer and milk transporter recently completed Dairysafe’s free online hygiene course, gaining fresh insights into managing contaminants and ensuring food safety across his entire operation.
The course aims to increase the understanding, prevention and management of the three main contaminants found in dairy: E. coli, Listeria, and Staphylococcus aureus.
“I decided to do Dairysafe’s online course because of my milk transporting business,” said Shane, who runs Paringa View Park with his wife Kylee.
“I’m helping processing factories write their SOPs for safely uploading milk from my tanker to their factory. Dairysafe’s course was eye-opening in several areas, and particularly hygiene.
“I’m very strict on hygiene in the dairy, in terms of spraying the cows’ teats correctly, dipping cups between high cell count cows, keeping the milk vats clean, keeping the transport clean, and so on. But after seeing the course and how easily bacteria such as Listeria can spread through a factory through something as simple as a spanner, it gave me a whole new understanding of hygiene.
“I learnt that bacteria could come up from the drains and could hide in door seals. You’ve got to treat a dairy processing business like a surgery room in a hospital – it must be a sterile environment.”
This knowledge has given Shane a deeper understanding of hygiene in his dairy and his transport business.
Paringa View Park has three tankers, one for carting milk, one for carting factory waste and one for carting food-grade water.
“Originally, I was just milking cows, and then I wanted to get into transport because I’ve driven trucks in my past. We set up the tanker, and initially it was just for taking our milk to our processor Udder Delights, but then we branched out to other farms and then other factories,” Shane said.
“We are truly a transport company now. Because of the size and scale of having several tankers full-time on the road, and with multiple staff working across the business, I’ll make sure everyone at Paringa View Park does the Dairysafe course.
“We also work around the dairy factories a little bit, helping with maintenance and fabrication. Factories ask us to come in and install tanks and sheds for them. So, we need to ensure we are ahead of the curve when it comes to hygiene.”
Shane said cleaning milk tankers was reasonably automated, with spray balls that go inside the vessels. “You rely on the modern chemicals to wash, sanitise, rinse and clean effectively. It’s the inside of the vessel and the connections that count. And we have technology for monitoring bacteria,” he said.
“Tankers are no different to a milk vat, really – we just push a button and let the cleaning happen. It’s a bit like a modern dairy – you push the auto wash system, and it washes itself. Our job is to monitor it to ensure it is effective.”
Shane thinks everyone in the dairy industry should do the Dairysafe hygiene training. He says it closes the gap between the farmer and the processor.
“I think it’s good for farmers to understand how much bacteria are around them. It will help with food safety and animal health, and the general upkeep of the dairy,” he said.
Paringa View Park is a medium-sized dairy near Charleston, milking 150 cows all year round.
“Being all year-round milking, we have all our young stock and everything on farm here, so it’s a fairly large operation in that respect because we breed for everything ourselves. It’s a stud Holstein herd,” Shane said.
“I’ve been told we were the only true polled Holstein herd in Australia. I think other people are starting to go that way now, but we truly only breed for polled animals. That’s our claim to fame.”
Cows are milked in an 8-aside double-up herringbone. It’s an older dairy that’s been refurbished several times from an original walk-through dairy.
“We do hope to, money-dependent, change it to a robotic dairy one day. A lot of data and technology come out of robots, and there are arguments for animal health and milk quality. And the lifestyle benefits are pretty appealing as well,” Shane said.
“Our milking starts at 4am and finishes at 10pm, and we have a split shift between staff to keep it all going. Bringing in robots would take the pressure off this system and allow the staff to focus on the breeding, transport and maintenance.”
To learn more about Dairysafe’s training course and take part, click here: https://dairy-safe.com.au/positive-feedback-to-processor-training/