LEARN

Dairy protein from pasture-raised cows

Grass is a natural food source for cows. The diet of the cows that supply milk to us is primarily made up of grass (96% on average). We know this because our suppliers, the New Zealand farmers, maintain extensive records on their farming practices, including the cow’s diet and feed consumption. The Fonterra Grass-fed standard that features on our packaging is independently certified annually by AsureQuality.
New Zealand's natural environment is ideal for growing grass because of its fertile soil, moderate temperatures and excellent rainfall, as well as abundant sunshine. Pasture's in New Zealand are primarily made up of clover and perennial rye grass, but this also includes grass silage, hay, and forage crops in the definition of pasture/grass. The combination of time on pasture and the care and skill of the farmers means New Zealand's milk products are full of flavor (1) and nutrition (2).

1 - Bendall, J.G. 2001. Aroma Compounds of fresh milk from New Zealand cows fed different diets. J. Agric. Food Chem. 49: 4825-4832

2 - Brigitte H. Schwendel, Timothy J. Wester, Patrick C.H. Morel, Bertram Fong, Michael H. Tavendale, Craig Deadman, Nicola M. Shadbolt, Don E. Otter, Pasture feeding conventional cows removes differences between organic and conventionally produced milk, Food Chemistry,Volume 229, 2017, Pages 805-813

New Zealanders farm the way nature intended, with cows grazing on lush pastures

Grass is a natural food source for cows, and New Zealand is one of the few places in the world where cows can graze on grass year-round.

Following nature’s seasonal patterns

New Zealand milk production follows a natural pattern of pasture growth; cows begin producing milk at the time when grass growth picks up in early spring (August). Milk production peaks when grass growth rates are the highest (October). Then in the winter, when the grass growth is the lowest (as well as the nutrients it provides), the cows are generally rested.

Animal welfare

Pasture based grazing naturally provides a high level of animal welfare and allows cows to socially interact with other cows amongst the herd. Allowing animals to display their natural instincts, in a natural environment, reduces stress, reduces sickness, and the need for antibiotic use. Also, because traditional pasture systems follow the seasons, cows rest in winter, and make milk when the sun is shining.

Our ethos is to create sustainable, dairy-based active nutrition products, and we work with suppliers that have this common goal.  

We are on a journey to improve the sustainability of TAHA Health & Nutrition.

Our largest dairy ingredient supplier (Fonterra of New Zealand) is on a journey to create goodness for generations through sustainable nutrition. Fonterra has made giant strides towards achieving many environmental goals over the past decade with high efficiency, year-round pasture grazing and lower use of supplementary feeds, and they continue to improve their farming operations to reduce on-farm emissions.They have expert teams of Sustainable Dairying Advisors who work with each farmer to establish Farm Environment Plans, manage water use, soil health and biodiversity, nutrient management and no-till and low-till land management, amongst other things.

The carbon footprint on-farm for Fonterra milk production in New Zealand is 0.78kg CO2-e/kg FPCM (excluding land-use change), 0.91kg CO2-e/kg FPCM including land-use change (3)

The carbon footprint of New Zealand’s milk supply is approximately one-third of the global average of 2.5kg CO2-e/kg FPCM (4), and New Zealand farmers are committed to ongoing efforts to operate responsibly and sustainably.

Collectively, we are on a journey to zero emissions and zero waste across our supply chain. We are working to achieve zero waste to landfill and to have all packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025.

3 - Fonterra Sustainability Report 2019 https://view.publitas.com/fonterra/sustainability-report-2019/page/1

4 - FAO, 2018. “Climate Change and the Global Dairy Cattle Sector”, Report by FAO and GDP, 2018. http://www.fao.org/3/CA2929EN/ca2929en.pdf

All of our ingredients are carefully reviewed and selected as GMO free. We also ensure there are no growth hormones in our dairy protein - New Zealand actually bans the use of growth hormones (often called rBST or rBGH) in dairy cattle, so you can guarantee there's none in any of our TAHA Health & Nutrition products.

We only choose ingredients that come from natural sources, and that includes our flavors and sweeteners. They're always non-GMO and often organic, too!

We also try to stick with ingredients that naturally taste good and don't require a lot of flavor masking or blocking. Simplicity is the name of the game, so most of the ingredients that you see in our products are things that are traditionally known to do good - like fruits, vitamins and minerals.

We try not to use ingredients that are "the latest fad" or that seem cool, but taste awful.