Turning Waste Goat Whey Into Profitable Natural Pork

A KZN-based goat dairy operation is using its whey by-product as a highly nutritious, low-cost feed for pigs. Lloyd Phillips spoke to Paul Coetzee and Jan Wiese to find out more.

- Paul Coetzee & Jan Wiese

Cheese-making involves separating the milk solids (the curds) from the milk itself. The remaining watery substance is called whey. The curds are then made into cheese.

The process results in far more whey than cheese. In fact, it is a rule of thumb that 10kg of milk will produce just 1kg of cheese, but 9kg of whey.

Despite being highly nutritious, whey is often considered a waste product by cheese manufacturers and disposed of. However, two South African agripreneurs recently saw a business opportunity with the many litres of whey produced by their herd of dairy goats in the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Midlands. The story begins in 2014, when Paul Coetzee, owner of the 1 000ha mixed enterprise Invermooi Farming in KZN’s Lower Lotheni area, bought a 600-head milking flock of Saanen, Toggenburg, and British Alpine goats. He used the flock to produce raw milk under contract for an independent KZN milk buyer and processor.

“My ultimate goal was to grow my goat flock sufficiently to supply all the milk requirements for my on-farm cheesery,” recalls Coetzee.

“Then, in 2017, Jan Wiese approached me to buy some additional milking ewes to increase the size of his goat flock in the Karoo. He came to Invermooi to see my flock and give his advice, and ended up offering to buy my entire goat flock, with the aim of running it on Invermooi and building and operating his own goat’s milk cheesery.”

Wiese is the owner of the seven-year-old, award-winning Karoo Goat’s Milk Products (KGMP) in the Loxton area of the Northern Cape. Over this time, he grew his own milking flock of Saanen, Toggenburg, British Alpine, and Bunte Deutsche Edelziegen goats from 46 to 800 ewes.