JUST TO SHARE (Lau Tai Onn): Visit to Farm Fresh UPM Serdang on May 12, 2023

Sin Chew Daily report

I was impressed by a report in the Sin Chew Daily on April 14, 2023 about Farm Fresh UPM, Serdang aka “Little New Zealand” and wanted to pay a visit for quite sometime.

(Refer:《星洲日报》14/4/2023 “小纽西兰田园风光”)

On Friday, May 12, 2023, I finally made this trip to Farm Fresh UPM with my wife. We left home at 11.00am and quided by Waze, we reached our destination at Ladang 16, Bahagian Ternakan Taman Pertanian Universiti, UPM Serdang, Selangor at about 11.30am.

The entrance fee for adults during weekdays (Tue -Fri) is RM10, and during weekends is RM15. Business Hours: 10am – 5pm daily (Close every Monday).

It was a Friday noon and non school holidays, but we saw visitors from 2 bus loads of teachers and students (buses from Ipoh) and also another bus of kindergarten pupils.

The weather was very hot and luckily we didn’t walk very much. No sooner we bought the tickets then we were able to catch a tractor ride to tour the farm for about 20 minutes. The tractor stops for a while at the peak of the hill to allow visitors to take photos with the landmark signage of the word “Farm Fresh UPM”.

Video of tractor ride

Farm Fresh UPM gives a glimpse of farm life in a natural setting. Unlike Sabah Kundasang’s Desa Dairy Farm which has cool weather (which we visited in September, 2022), it is hot and humid here at Farm Fresh UPM. But the plus point is that we saw many cows here whereas we hardly saw any in Kundasang.

It is noted that Farm Fresh UPM was founded by Loi Tuan Ee out of a need to produce the freshest and most natural milk possible. He imported 60 Holstein Jersey cows from Australia for a start. It sits on a plot of land owned by Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). The partnership between UPM and Farm Fresh dates back to 2020 when the two collaborated to establish an Industry Centre of Excellence.

It is interesting to find that “ladies” are used to address the cows and there are educational information about “what do cows eat”, “milk facts” and “how milk is made”.

There is an in-house restaurant by the name of The Acre which provides pasta, sourdough pizza, salads and soups etc. We didn’t stop by to patronize but tried 2 cones of ice-cream (RM3.50 each) after shopping the following items form at Fresh Picks stall:

1. Fresh Milk glass bottles 1L (RM11.00)

2. Fresh Milk Cafe Latte 700g (RM11.00)

3. Fresh Chocolate Milk 568g (RM5.80)

4. Fresh Banana Milk 700g (RM8.90)

5. Yogurt Fruit Punch 700g (RM6.10)

Total RM42.80.

It should be noted that cashless payments only are accepted for everything transacted here.

We left Fresh Farm at about 12.35pm and returned home at 1.00pm.