About Us

Our Story

The Berry Dairy has a licensed café featuring locally sourced produce, pick your own strawberries, playgrounds for the kids, a farmyard petting zoo and a providore shopfront for those on a foodie adventure! You can also call in on your push bike as we are just a short detour from the rail trail and have push bike parking.

Owners Nicole and Brendan, moved over from New Zealand in 2018, chasing greener pastures. They absolutely fell in love with this piece of the world that they now call home, and are passionate about Gippsland produce and agriculture.

After purchasing the Mewburn Park dairy farm in May 2022, they decided it would be the perfect site to begin The Berry Dairy. The idea of adding strawberries and agritourism to their farm started with Brendan envisioning a few strawberries in a field with a shack to sell them from. Clearly, this idea has taken on a life of its own and has turned into much more!

With their four children – including two under three- they quickly realised there was a large gap in the market for a local family friendly experience. What eventuated, is not only a cafe, but a fun and unique country experience the whole family will enjoy.

As a young family, they had a vision to provide a space catering for everyone, young and old, couples, families or friends, to both interact with where their food comes from and enjoy fresh and delicious local produce -and most importantly have fun!

See The Dairy Farm

At the Berry Dairy, you have the opportunity to pick your berries with a stunning view over the family dairy farm, where 700 cows are milked in a rotary cowshed on 450 acres.

The dairy calves once per year across July and August. The cows then get milked twice per day until May, when they then get to have a very relaxing two month holiday. Nicole and Brendan rear all of their calves on farm, right through to the weaning stage when they move on to their new home.

It is at this point that the calves either stay in the system to join the herd at 2 years old if they are heifers, or are sold on to local beef operations if they are bulls.

The Strawberries!

We now have 20,000 strawberry's planted in our fields, they came as strawberry runners from Toolangi Strawberry Growers. These strawberries were all planted individually by hand.

The main varieties are Albion and Cabrillo, we also have a small amount of Monteray and Pelatuma. I wonder which ones you think will taste the best?

These strawberries will produce fruit from late October through to May, and will last for two years before they are replaced with new plants.

Deliciously Local

Most of the ingredients on our menu come from within a 100-kilometer radius of The Berry Dairy.

Our wine list includes wines from Blue Gables Winery, Narkoojee Winery and Lightfoot and Sons Winery. Beer and cider from Avon Ridge Cider, Maffco Brewery and Sailors Grave Brewery. Our spirits are from Infusa Distillery and Logan’s Micro Distillery. For our coffee beans we are proud to be using Fat Cat Coffee Roasters matched perfectly with the Gippsland Jersey Milk!

Our cheeses include cheese from Maffra Cheese, Berry’s Creek Cheese and Tarago River Cheese. Our Mewburn Park grass-fed beef is featured throughout our entire menu. You can find our Kabana and salami on our platter boards, as well as our minced beef in the homemade burgers and lasagna.

Our organic sourdough, made locally by Truli, is featured in our platters, toasties, and sandwiches. It’s a must-try!

Who can forget our signature ice cream, made right in front of you using our own strawberries, now you can't get more local than that!

Sustainable Strawberries

We want to produce strawberries in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way. This means no plastic packaging, and also all of our takeaway cups are biodegradable including the lids! The water we use for the Berry Dairy also comes from recycled water for farm irrigation, ensuring we utilise every drop. We have planted a 150 metre double row native tree shelter belt to encourage wildlife, and also have our own beehives.

We are sourcing as much local produce as we can, over 90% of the menu, to reduce our scope 3 carbon emissions. We also have covered our dairy roof with solar panels, with the plan to expand these further and start utilising a battery system.