Burra Foods

Burra Foods is a 100% Australian owned family business, run by the Crothers family since 1987. With a long history in the Dairy industry, Burra Foods specialises in creating bulk products for manufacturers with special requirements both in Australia and overseas.

Burra Foods was a concept born in the early 80s, the idea was to move out of liquid milk, which was government controlled, into what they call manufacturing milk, which is more open, internationally marketed, with less price regulation.

At the time the Crothers family had a medium sized liquid milk business in Shepparton that processed 35 million litres and employed 100 people. In 1987 they bought a little yoghurt factory in Bayswater called Gippsland Dairy Products, it was a small operation, five staff, three of those part time, two full time, which made yoghurt and cottage cheese, and the idea was to transfer this business, to Shepparton, where they had manufacturing skills, and grow it.

By mid 1991, they were in there, and it was effectively the five or six people from Bayswater in this big, rambling old factory. they’d already made some expansionary moves into a new product line, fromage frais dairy dessert but they didn’t have any facilities, they just had a dream and a little bit of technology and a bit of marketing, but finally moving to Korumburra they had this potentially wonderful, infrastructure that was very run down, needed lots of money spent on it, but could be done slowly, and slowly, slowly, slowly upgraded. That was really the birth of Burra Foods.

Burra Foods is focussed on manufacturing dairy ingredients that deliver the functional and sensory characteristics of fresh milk.

Burra Foods aims to provide their customers with solutions to their (customers) dairy ingredient needs. They work in collaboration with their customers to develop ingredients specific to their (customers) unique manufacturing requirements. They consider direct technical dialogue essential in building an understanding of their customers' expectations and product requirements.

Most of their business is in international markets, where they supply many of the world's leading dairy and food manufacturers. Their markets include USA, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and parts of the Middle East and Europe. They operate a branch office in Tokyo.

Burra Foods people are committed to 6 core values:

1. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence, 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration are the key ingredients for success.
2. Errors of enthusiasm are preferable to the indifference of wisdom.
3. Do business boldly.
4. Give full consideration and respect to the individual.
5. Work hard yet keep it fun.
6. Nobody is smarter than the market.

Burra Foods is organisation focussed on value added products and responsiveness to market demand. Their recruitment, quality and payment systems are matched to this strategy and are a cornerstone of their business.

Burra Foods has consistently paid a premium price for milk to reflect the quality of milk supplied, the flexibility of supply, and the value this adds to their product range.

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