This love started as a young boy when after school he would help his uncle at the Manning River Co-op Dairy Society in Taree.

“My reward was a product whether it was vanilla custard, chocolate milk or cheese,” recalled Michael.

“Then when I was 15-years-old my aunty gifted me a butter churn – and that’s where it started.”

Decades later Michael’s love has turned into a business with his wife Joanne called Kingston Creek Creamery in Cundletown.

About four years ago, Michael and Joanne, of Ghinni Ghinni near Cundletown, started experimenting with making butter and ice cream.

They had two goals – put the flavour back into butter and the love back into ice cream, using local ingredients as much as possible along the way.

“We wanted a product that gave value for money,” explained Michael.

“In Europe butter is a flavour enhancer and considered a very important food.

“With ice cream, Peter’s once called it the ‘Health Food of the Nation’, so we wanted to go back to the basics – double the protein, less fat, less sugar and no additives.”  

For years it was just a hobby for the pair. They would go along to local markets and show people the process of how butter and ice cream used to be made using a churn or bucket.

“We want to show people how it was done 100 years ago, showing that there was work involved and how families made it together for their afternoon sweet,” Michael said.

Michael and Joanne still attend events and perform demonstrations and recently at the Cundletown Museum Raise the Roof fundraiser, a young girl told Michael she milked her own goats and was really excited to see what would be made with milk.

“Usually the kids run up and the adults stand back, but then they realise they’ve never seen it done before either, the parents try the finished product and say ‘wow that’s good!’” Michael said.

Hearing this reaction over the past years, the couple realised there was a market for ice cream and butter like it should be.

Joanne completed a degree in food science and technology, a production room was built and they became certified by the NSW Food Authority with distribution and selling of the products beginning in December of 2014.

So how do you make an old product not only new again, but successful?

You add enthusiasm, years of experimentation and research and a dash of uniqueness.

These qualities came together to earn the business two gold awards in the 2015 Dairy Industry Association of Australia New South Wales Dairy Product Competition.

Kingston Creek Creamery won the ‘reduced fat ice-cream - other than vanilla or chocolate’ section with their flavours lemon myrtle and vanilla lavender honey.

“We like to go with delicate flavours,” said Michael.

“Everyone does a chocolate and vanilla. That’s fine, but when salted caramel came out everyone’s doing it. So we thought about what we can do that’s unique and associated with Australia like lemon myrtle,” said Joanne.  

“I think you can overpower ice creams and when you overpower them, you are eating sugar and fat,” continued Michael.

“With ice creams we are buying, you see fancy swirl flavours and a lot of confectionary with a lot of sugar.

“It gives you a sugar hit, but it’s probably 20 per cent confectionary and double the fat.”

“A lot of products have gone away from the way things used to be and they’ve substituted other stuff,” added Joanne.

The ingredients within the product are 92 per cent Australian, 6 per cent from New Zealand, and 2 per cent from France, and-or Singapore or Madagascar depending on supply.

The milk in the ice cream is local and the butter for the cream is supplied by a company in NSW.

“What we’d like to do is seriously use local ingredients, not just say we use them,” said Michael.

“We want to keep it local to help local business. In Tasmania, for instance, you go on holidays and drive along the highway to the chocolate factory, the honey place, the cheese factory and they are all saying ‘don’t forget to stop down the road at the honey place! Don’t forget to stop at the chocolate place!’ – and that’s what they do to help each other, which helps everybody.

“I think that’s what we have to do to try and help each other.

“Even if the cost is a little big higher and there is a little bit more work.

“We’re here and we’re helping here.”

The business is not full time for the pair, who devote one full day every couple of weeks to delivering their product to stockists. Their full-time work comes from their milk transport business, Barlin Milk Haulage.

“Our industry has always been relevant; I’ve always considered the Manning Valley an excellent place for dairying,” said Michael.

“We’ve got a good industry and here and it can be sustained. We just need to give people the enthusiasm to keep rolling along.”  

The long-term dream for Michael and Joanne is to form a co-op and have other farms involved in the business. With the passion the pair hold for their products, it’s likely they will make that dream a reality.  

“I only do it for the passion because I love dairy products,” said Michael.

“I want people to enjoy it and be happy they’ve had the product.

“If you think of anything to do with food products and you’re in it to make a lot of money, you give up,  because you’ve got to enjoy what you do.

“And that’s everywhere - chefs that are passionate aren’t there to make money, they are there to see the look on people’s face when they taste the product.

“That’s what makes it all worth it.”