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Hello December,
I wanted to explain why I am adding so many imported milk alternatives. Having been a vegetarian who ran a cheese shop (who still loves cheese), I hope you will see that this comes with zero judgement!
As a bit of background. In South Africa, a very small percentage of the soil is arable (some put this at 10%).The remaining is non-arable but can be used to farm livestock regeneratively if the correct management is put in place. Admittedly, in the largest part of the country this is not happening. Degenerative animal practices are used and, furthermore, too much of the arable land is being used to make degenerative animal feed. However, since as a Food Club we are able to source meat from farmers who are actively putting carbon back into the soil, I do now eat this meat.
However, dairy herds typically have much more intensive nutritional requirements than beef cattle. As a result, Dairy farmers till their soil annually to add synthetic fertiliser to the soil to sustain them. This is not regenerative and drastically reduces the biology in the soil, making farmers more and more reliant on synthetics.
Despite looking for some time now, I haven’t found a dairy producer who is truly regenerative in the way our beef farmers are. Regenerative dairy farming is a thing in other countries, jus not here yet. There are only a few farms that don’t heavily till their soil each year or who source their supplemental feed from farms that are not reliant on GMO (glyphosate resistant) crops. I have chosen our dairy suppliers because they are doing their best and slowly moving down a more regenerative path. But it’s by no means perfect.
For this reason, I do see dairy alternatives as key at the moment. For now, producers of oat milk import oats so as to ensure that they are both gluten free and aren’t riddled with chemicals. South Africa only has one farmer that we know of that doesn’t farm oats with heavy use of pesticides – Bertie at Lowerland. Sadly, Bertie is certainly not going to have enough to satiate the need for milk alternatives when his crop is ready in the new year.…My hope is that if we create the demand, the local supply might follow one day.
For milk alternatives: We started off with Ok Ja. Ok Ja make their product entirely abroad in tetrapaks, which are not widely recyclable at the moment in SA. I will not remove them because I know a number of you rely on them and have kids that really like them. However, I have now also added the new Buttanut milk range. They source their macadamias and almonds locally and make them locally (but their oats are from Finland), and they have chosen a bottle which is made from a plastic that is widely recyclable in South Africa. They are also the cheapest I have found so far. They do add dipotassium phosphate, but from my research this is not something to be very worried about (let me know if you disagree!)The last supplier I am now looking at for the new year is Oh Oat – an oat milk supplier who manufacture in Woodstock and sell in returnable glass bottles. I think food clubs are well placed for this, but we haven’t managed to get them on board in time for December. Keep you posted on them.
I have added Yokos coconut yoghurt. While importing coconuts is far from ideal, Yokos are going to have locally sourced almond nut milk yoghurt again when season begins so I thought it was worth starting with them. They are also delicious. I had to preorder this yoghurt - I have ordered 8 litre tubs, so you will be allocated on a first come first serve basis.
Fauxmage: I love these spreadable cheeses – I really recommend giving them a go. I have taken them off the site for a while because we had so few orders that I never reached the minimum spend – but I entreat you to try!
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