By Jeff Tribe
Necessity truly was the mother of invention for Red Dragon Dairy. Its pivot from sheep and goat milk production into sheep cheese-making and retail was driven initially by the ‘PDQ’ (pretty darned quick) need to do something with 2,500 litres of sheep milk a dairy unexpectedly indicated it did not want.
“I had to find a home for it,” explained Red Dragon founder Ellis Morris.
Morris’s dairy roots reach back to a registered Holstein milking and breeding herd on 90 rented council holding acres (land vacant after the war purchased by municipalities and leased to young, beginning farmers) near Narbeth, Wales. Eighteen years into the venture his herd reached 60, but stepping onto the owner/operator ladder remained financially remote. Encouragement from friends who had emigrated to Canada opened his eyes to potential here, investigated further during a visit with an Irish couple living north of Woodstock.
“I knew after day one or day two this would be my future,” said Ellis, who was 50 at the time.
He checked out a 125-acre property at 382723 Salford Road, west of the hamlet in February, 2007, purchasing it for a family (wife Hazel and children Catrin and Sion) move in August of that year, ‘just before land prices went crazy.’
“Basically, inflation put me on my feet.”
Morris began milking goats and sheep as an affordable dairy industry entry point, building to twice-daily four-hour milkings of 450 goats and 250 sheep.
The process is similar to cattle Ellis said, although on two rather than four teats. Sheep have smaller teats, producing up to three litres of five-point-five per cent protein and six-point-five per cent fat milk daily, while goats can produce six to seven running around three-point-five per cent protein and four per cent fat. He shipped goat milk to the co-op in Teeswater, selling sheep milk on the open market.
Heart issues intervened three years ago, challenging not only Morris’s innate sense of invincibility, but his business model.
“At that time, I didn’t think I’d be alive today,” he Morris, accepting the harsh reality life had to change. “But I didn’t want to throw the towel in completely.”
His answer came via cheesemaking experience beginning with having to find a home for that tanker truckload of sheep milk in 2010. Another dairy offered to make cheese for him out of it, ultimately resulting in the creation of Quality Sheep Milk, a wholesale sheep milk cheese business based around contracted production.
“The whole idea was we’d build this and make the cheese ourselves,” Morris explained.
Selling most of the livestock and acreage, he retained a severed three acres including their house and space to construct a 60-by-30-foot retail building, backed by cheese production facilities. Morris sources sheep milk from a local farmer, paying $2.25 a litre, which represents a significant premium over market rate.
“That’s picked up in the yard,” said Morris of a mutually-beneficial replacement opportunity for a former goat operation. “He’s happy because he can put something in his barn and I’m happy because I’ve got a good source of quality milk.”
Morris had experimented with making water buffalo pizza mozzarella at the behest of a neighbourhood farmer, upgrading his expertise as cheesemaker through formal courses in Vermont. The parent company name was changed to Red Dragon Dairy. It covers product diversity and honours the family’s heritage with the Welsh flag’s emblem.
Morris was “disappointed” at his lack of success sourcing anticipated grant support for the broader operation, however continues to expand in stages.
Used to meeting the public as a former district sales manager and ruminant advisor with Bibby Agriculture in Wales, Ellis had “absolutely zero” retail experience, opening with the theory of surrounding Red Dragon cheese with additional appetizing options.
“We want to make the journey here worthwhile.”
The Red Dragon Dairy features a wide variety of sheep milk cheeses, cheddar, gouda, feta, pecorino romano (similar to parmesan), gruyere (a Swiss-style cheese grated onto French onion soup), cearphilly (a Welsh cheddar, drier and crumblier than its Canadian counterpart), manchego (Spain’s national sheep milk cheese), cream cheese and a smoked feta which Morris says is potentially unique in Canada.
“When you crumble that one onto a salad it’s like adding bacon, that smokiness.”
The dairy also creates sheep milk yogurt and extremely popular cheese curds, original and in flavours including chilli, herb and garlic, dill and taco.
“People love them.”
Initially, there may be some trepidation around trying cheese sourced from creatures better known for wool and meat production.
“We call it the sheep milk shudder,” Morris smiled.
Red Dragon curds tend to be a gateway he says, an opportunity for a gentle reminder they are made out of sheep milk too. That base product also seems to provide an avenue for those who love cheese but are lactose-intolerant Morris said, willing to give samples a try during shows.
“They end up being a full-time customer.”
The Red Dragon Dairy also offers fresh homebaked sourdough bread two or three times a week, Brubacher sausages, Carmichael’s pepperettes, local produce and canned goods, and maple syrup and imported European and up to 20-year-old aged Canadian cheeses. This spring, Morris hopes to add a picnic area along with expanded ice cream choices including soft, traditional hard scoop and sheep milk options.
“Some things work, some don’t, but if you don’t try them, you don’t know,” said Morris.
He has a tracking program which minutely identifies sales and inventory.
“But if you think that’s going to be the same next week, forget it,” he laughed. “It’s a guide - it’s only a guide.”
The Red Dragon Dairy’s approach represents confluence of concept, starting with fulfilling a back-of-mind field-to-fork dream. Secondly, retailing one’s own produce inside an identified niche promotes more control and healthier margins over wholesaling.
“There’s too many people taking that middle cut, doing nothing, but adding 20, 30 per cent every time it’s being handled,” Morris added. “What we sell, we get a fair price on.”
COVID-19 was an uninvited guest to the dairy’s grand opening.
“That was a joy, I can tell you,” said Morris with a wry smile. It wasn’t easy because people were encouraged to stay home. Having said that, he continued, those in the surrounding rural community or supportive customers from nearby Tillsonburg, Ingersoll and Woodstock wishing to avoid big box urban outlets were presented with an option.
“They could come into a small, private market to shop.”
Despite that timing, Morris can’t believe how business has mushroomed, starting from nothing, at the beginning of COVID, to sales which have almost doubled annually. Beyond “one ugly old man who doesn’t take a wage”, he laughed, the Red Dragon has one enthusiastic full-time employee sourced from a neighbourhood farm, as well as a bookkeeper. The learning continues Morris emphasized, and while what he’s doing isn’t what was planned, he has few complaints.
“You don’t have time to think if you’re doing the right thing, just keep your head down and go,” Morris concluded. “But this has exceeded expectations.” ◊