Alas, a quick look at the attendees revealed a "no show" from Murray Goulburn chief executive Stephen O'Rourke and his chairman and team, who were either sitting in Melbourne contemplating if they can pay the $5 a share that Warrnambool seems to want for its shares, or wheeling up and down the Great Ocean Road in search of supportive farmer shareholders.

But if O'Rourke was looking for inspiration he should have attended the charity dinner in Bega on Thursday night where he would have observed some astonishing prices for cheese and butter that might have given him just the grounds he needed to resolve the Warrnambool stand-off.

Investment banker David Williams paid the staggering equivalent of $150,000 a tonne for a 20 kilogram block of Bega's gold medal winner Heritage Cheddar, down a notch from the thought-to-be world record $4000 ($200,000 a tonne) he forked over in 2008.