“Every day, I think ‘what the hell am I doing’,” he says with a laugh. Not the least because he moved into buffalo farming as he was approaching 70, but also because he had spent most of his working life in earthmoving after starting out as a dairy farmer. The buffalo business seemed an unlikely career change.
The story of how that business, Quindanning Buffalo, began couldn’t be more Australian.
Back from the brink
It begins with research scientist Barry Lemcke, who had been working with the Northern Territory government for 30 years developing a superior breed of buffalo – the Riverine Buffalo, with genetics tracing back to Italy, Egypt and India – to cross with the feral buffalo that roam the Top End. When Lemcke retired, the entire breeding program was heading for the abattoir.
Graeme, who ran an earthmoving business based in Broome for 40 years, was on his way to a party when he heard the news from his mates, former stock contractors with a lifelong passion for buffalo.
“The boys rang and told me these animals were going to slaughter,” Graeme says. “We all got together, thought it was a good idea and that was the start.”
Graeme says the buffalo dairy has been a costly undertaking, requiring significant investment before the business could begin generating returns. “But I came at farming from a different view,” he says. “I thought, ‘what do I have to spend and what do I have to do to make this work’.”
He arrived in Quindanning, in the Peel region, in 2021 with a road-train load of 40 animals from Darwin. After difficult early attempts at milking – “they were quite old and cranky sods to deal with” – Graeme decided to go all in. He bought young stock from established herds on the east coast and built Quindanning Buffalo from there, selling his first commercial milk supply in 2024.
Today, he has around 700 animals across 400 hectares in Quindanning and 160 hectares in Capel, where a rented rotary diary milks about 150 a day. Quindanning Buffalo is now the third largest buffalo dairy operation in Australia, and WA’s only milking herd, providing fresh milk, buffalo meat and other products to the market.
What makes buffalo milk special
Graeme may not have tasted buffalo milk before he started, but he is an enthusiastic convert. Rich, creamy and brilliantly white, buffalo milk contains about 8.5 percent fat, compared with about 3.5 percent from the standard dairy cow. Buffalo also don’t process the beta-carotene pigment that gives a yellow tinge to jersey cow milk, hence its snowy appearance.
Buffalo milk naturally contains A2-type beta-casein protein rather than the A1 protein mix commonly found in a lot of cows’ milk. Some people who experience discomfort when drinking regular cows’ milk find the A2 milk easier to digest.
It also contains up to 20 percent solids, compared with about 12 percent for dairy milk. This density gives buffalo dairy products, such as ice-cream, yoghurt and cheese, real depth of flavour. “You don’t have to add anything to it to thicken it up – it’s a very natural process,” Graeme says.
Award-winning local cheesemakers La Delizia Latticini, who use the milk to make their beautiful buffalo mozzarella, were his first clients. Fellow Peel producer Harvey Cheese is also using the milk to try buffalo blue cheese, brie and other varieties.
Quindanning Buffalo’s own branded milk, yoghurt and Haloumi are available through selected Perth retailers, including the Herdsman Market, while he would love to bring buffalo ice-cream – some of the best Graeme reckons he has tasted – to a wider market.
“The potential for cream is huge, too; it’s suddenly the new wonder food,” he says.
Building the business
Apart from the early “cranky” ones, the buffalo haven’t given Graeme much grief in his first foray into buffalo farming. “I thought getting the animals, getting into the dairy, getting to critical mass would be hard,” he says. “As it turns out that was the easy bit.”
Buffalo are known for their longevity and durability. They are also, perhaps surprisingly for such a large animal, mostly gentle creatures. “I feed them every night and they all come around for a pat,” he says. “But if they don’t want to be patted, you give them a bit of space.”
What Graeme has found the most difficult is the marketing, getting the message out about the benefits, and superb flavour, of buffalo milk. It’s why someone so at home in the country (he freely admits a trip to Perth is “like pulling teeth”) is coming up for Meet the Buyer™ for the first time in October.
He understands what the annual Buy West Eat Best trade show represents: a room full of the people he wants to meet. The cheesemakers and potential processing partners who can take his milk and make delicious yoghurt, ice-cream and cheese at volume. Then there are the retailers and food service operators who can help build Quindanning Buffalo’s profile in the local market.
“I don’t want to be sending buffalo milk over east, I really want it to be for Western Australia,” Graeme says. And he doesn’t want to be a marketer, either. “I want to be a farmer. If I can find the right people to take the product and do it justice, I will just sell them the milk. That suits me fine.”
Meet the Buyer™ is at Crown Perth on Tuesday 20 October. The exhibition floor has sold out, but buyers can still book tickets to the trade show.
Note: Meet the Buyer™ is a trade and industry event only but you can support local by supporting the businesses mentioned and looking out for local produce wherever you shop.