From humble beginnings to cream of the crop

THEY STARTED BY SELLING 500ML BOTTLES OF MILK AT WEENEN’S BUS RANK

Alan and Frances Webster arrived in the Weenen area of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) in late 1990, ready to take their first steps towards becoming commercial dairy farmers. The young couple had long been scrimping and saving towards achieving this goal during Alan’s time as a farm manager and Frances’s sojourn as a lecturer at a teacher training college in Mpumalanga’s Nelspruit area. Yet even these savings were insufficient, which meant that the Websters had to ask for a private loan to cover the costs of getting their dairy farm off the ground. Frances recalls that banks were not interested in loaning her and Alan any money, as the couple did not have an official credit history. Undeterred, they pressed ahead, spending the money they had saved to buy 37ha of irrigated pastures in the Weenen area, and purchased a nuclear herd of 20