In the late sixties farmers from a few areas in Pujon, East Java, a mountainous region with a cool climate favourable to milk production, organised themselves in cooperatives. The year 1975 was an important milestone for the dairy farmers when for the first time they sold 160 litres of fresh milk to the Waru plant, Nestlé’s first factory in the country set up just two years earlier. This was the fruit of Nestlé’s agricultural technical assistance to the farmers. This initial success soon became the foundation for a more comprehensive and mutually beneficial partnership between Nestlé and dairy cooperatives.

With government financial support later in the decade, the dairy farmers imported pedigree milk cows from Australia and New Zealand, which helped them develop some of the best herds of milk cows in the region. Combined with Nestlé’s continuous assistance, which covered the organisation of transport, cooling installations for the milk and their maintenance, quality control of the milk in the collection centres, and improving feedstock for the cattle, the farmers were able to increase their milk yields at an amazing rate.

Today, Nestlé Indonesia is dealing directly with around 28,000 farmers in 28 dairy cooperatives around East Java and absorbing 510 tons fresh milk directly from them. Perhaps the biggest change was felt by about these 28 thousand smallholder families, who have enjoyed assured incomes from their milk sales to Nestlé over the years, not to mention other villagers who obtained employment in the production process, working as cooperative managers, operatives, or even grass collectors.