Meredith Farm Produce wins From the Paddock trophy at 2025 Produce Awards - Produce Awards

Aug 29, 2025

Their marinated goat’s cheese is a fixture in countless households around Australia. Now, the farming family behind Meredith Dairy is breaking new ground with an entirely different product.

You might know them as the makers of your favourite marinated goat’s cheese, but Sandy and Julie Cameron of Meredith Dairy have also recently made the move into meat – and already collected a national award for their efforts.

The couple has been raising sheep and goats on Meredith Farm in Victoria’s Golden Plains Shire since 1991, and the dairy products they produce can now be found in supermarkets across Australia. But even as their operation has grown, the Camerons have always remained true to their central goal of farming ethically and sustainably. They use waste timber and solar power to generate hot water and electricity. They recycle water, and work to revegetate native plant species and restore and protect native ecosystems.

A key part of Meredith Farm’s sustainability goal is to create a circular economy within its farming operations, and this has led the Camerons to pursue a new avenue – a way to add value to their male dairy goats. Males are often considered as ‘surplus’ in traditional goat dairy farming, but the Camerons saw their worth, and have introduced an entirely new offering to the Australian food landscape in the process – milk-fed dairy capretto (meaning ‘young goat’ in Italian). It’s a lean and tender meat with a delicate, sweet flavour – and it’s currently the only milk-fed farm-raised kid goat meat available on the market in Australia.

Not only is this capretto novel, it’s also of such outstanding quality that it’s caught the eye of some of the country’s best chefs, including Matt Moran, who has served it at his Sydney restaurant, Aria.

“This is truly beautiful meat. The Camerons go the extra mile to ensure the ethicality and sustainability of their farming practices. And you can taste the difference.” – Matt Moran

Now Meredith Farm has been recognised at Australia’s most prestigious national food awards, winning the From the Paddock award for its dairy capretto at the 2025 delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards.

Upon accepting the award, Sandy Cameron reflected on the influence that chefs have had on his family business’ success over the years.

“We started making cheese 35 years ago, and back then, no one wanted to know about sheep milk or goat cheese,” he said. “A few influential chefs at the time, Stephanie Alexander, Alla Wolf-Tasker, Tony Bilson and Neil Perry gave great support.

“All these years later, starting out with capretto; not a lot of people know about goat meat. We’re extraordinarily grateful for chefs such as Matt [Moran], Peter Gilmore, others in the room, and the the early pioneers of putting it in their shops, for having faith in the product and helping us get started all over again.”

A very promising start, by all accounts.