Southern Agriculture Corporation's Experience in Marketing Goat Dairy Products

Abstract

The market development and merchandising research by Southern Agriculture Corporation on goat milk products was the third phase of a three part pilot project also involving dairy goat breeding and management conducted by Winrock International Livestock Research and Training Center (Morrillton, Arkansas) and goat milk product development, manufacture, and evaluation by the Dairy Technology group of the University of Georgia.The project extended over 3 yr; the research was an attempt to quantify the potential for the sale of goat milk products in a metropolitan market of over 1.5million persons. Factors investigated as having real or possible influence on sales potential included number and kind of products offered for sale, fat and protein content of those products, characteristics of the market population, and price of the products (based on costs of ingredients, processing and packaging, and sales and delivery). The study did not produce absolute findings regarding the volume of sales of any product, but general conclusion indicated a potential sales volume of sufficient magnitude to justify movement toward development of a commercial dairy goat industry. Numerous problems requiring further attention before such development could become financially successful have been investigated.