Cork's Raw Organic Goat's Milk

In a very limited capacity, there is raw milk available in Ireland. Cloughjordan Community farm supplies its members with raw cows milk. In Cork, there is now raw goats milk available. Here's the story of a very rare consumer commodity in Ireland.

Joseph & Barry Desmond in Cork

According to the Census of Agriculture 2010, there were almost a quarter of a million dairy cows in Cork. All around father and son team Barry and Joseph Desmond in Ballinhassig are dairy farmers. Barry was a dairy farmer himself too, for a couple of decades. The land here is good, light deep clay soil.

So it’s not what you might call typical goat country. In fact, that same census lists 805 goats in the entire county of Cork.

And yet, among the awards at this year's Blas na hEireann Irish Food Awards was a Silver medal for Barry and Joseph Desmond's Orchard Cottage's raw organic goats milk. So how did this cow county duo end up in the goat business?

In a way, it comes back to the end of the Celtic Tiger. “I was working in a car dealership in Cork five or six years ago” Joseph tells me, Needless to say, new car sales hit something of a brick wall around 2007.

So off Joseph went to the Organic College in Dromcollagher. There he tried to decide between horticulture and goat farming, and the latter won out.

He added some more courses and started small with a handful of goats on the family farm. This, Joseph reckons now, was the best way to begin.

“It would be too much to take on 150 or 200 goats straight off. If I started with 200 I don’t know if I would have stuck with it”

He’s getting close now, with 170 goats, 40 milking, on 110 acres of grassland. Their herd is made up of Saanen for yield (3lt) and Anglo Nubians (2lt) for creaminess- the friesian’s and jersey’s respectively of the goat world. Saanen too have easier, more regular births.

But once you get him going on goats, there’s no stopping Joseph.

“Goats are more difficult to manage than cows, more hands on. You have to get to know them, and know how to work them out. They don’t like rain, they have to come in a bit, but they are good with cold temperatures. Foot management is important, they need to be trimmed 2-3 times a year, while there is also a lot of food bathing.”

Health can be an issue too, especially in organic, where it’s primarily about preventative. “You have to watch them for illness, especially pneumonia. Temperature changes really affect them. They can go downhill very quickly, it might only take a day, you have to be on the ball watching them. And as goats come in every night, you need more room”

They get to know you slowly it seems. “We hand reared all the kids, at the start they were bottle fed, they grow to trust you. One or two people only in contact with them is best, they are very inquisitive.”

Inquisitive, but choosy with their food too. “They are actually fussy and picky with food- they don’t eat everything! That’s a myth. If you change the diet, they know. Cattle actually eat what the goats don’t. Goats eat the young grass, the best of it. They love brambles and the herbs in the ditches. They actually start in the ditch, then go for the young grass. They are characters, each one is different – they love jumping and can clear four feet. They can be prone to worms though.”

Joseph at the Coal Quay farmers' market

As I said, he gets going on the subject of goats.

There is very little raw milk for sale in Ireland, yet alone raw organic goat’s milk. Though planning to expand next year, currently they just “sell 60 litres per week of the goat’s milk” Joseph tells me. All is sold in Cork: the farmers’ markets in Mahon Point, Cornmarket the Coal Quay market, An Tobairin health food store shop in Bandon and Quay Food in Kinsale.

This milk is thus one of the most exclusive retail products in Ireland, making foie gras in Donnybrook Fair seem common.

They also sell their own cheeses – 60 to 70 jars, in equal volumes of 100g and 150g jars, boilie (balls) in sunflower oil. Along with these, catering tubs of plain goats cheese for a lucky restaurant and “about 40 litres of yoghurt” are sold each week by Ballinhassig’s Orchard Cottage Dairy.

Raw organic goat’s milk is perhaps the most unusual of their range. The milk costs E2.50 per glass bottle. “We’ve kept the price competitive with conventional goats’ milk. People also love the glass bottles. It seems to keep fresher – for 6 or 7 days in fact - and people do prefer the taste from the bottle.”

some of the product range

Health, it seems, is one of the main drivers of this product.

“People do come miles for it, and the health food stores have waiting lists for it” according to Joseph. He says that his customers tell him that doctors are starting to recommend goat’s milk to people with a range of conditions, including in particular eczema.

The thinking is that “the fat globules are smaller, easier to digest, closer to human milk” Joseph Desmond says. This then makes it more apt for the human body to process. So for at least some consumers, goat’s milk just works better, when it comes to digestion, how the skin reacts, and other areas it seems.

Along with this, there’s the fact that it’s raw. By not reaching that very high boiling point involved in pasteurization, good bacteria are kept intact. This too is attractive to some consumers – gut micro flora are an emerging positive area of research for human health. While still a nascent area of study, the signs thus far are positive. But what about safety?

As well as all the standard tests, “we have the milk tested every 6-8 weeks, and the department tests it too” says Joseph. Luckily, he’s just a 15 minute drive from Enva in Ringaskiddy, where both the milk and the cheese are tested, at a cost of less than E20 a sample. “We’re happy to do this for our own piece of mind too.”

“After that” he adds “it’s just about maintaining good hygiene standards”. The issues with raw in goats milk are similar to cow’s milk. However goats don’t get TB as much as cows, they are quite resistant to it.”

Another unusual element to Orchard Cottage’s milk is its mild flavour. Goat’s milk has a reputation for being strong, so why is this milk so mild?

“I’m not sure actually! It must be the place, the surroundings, the grass” he laughs. Pondering on it a little more, he adds “Also most commercial herds are indoors a lot, which would affect the flavour too. Ours are out and about; they wait at the gate to go out after being milked.”

Interesting to wonder just how rich, mild and sweet lots of goat’s milk might be, if it came from the kind of land Joseph and Barry Desmond have here in Ballinhassig, the kind that’s usually reserved for those one million dairy cows.

That's our discussion regarding Cork's Raw Organic Goat's Milk

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