Arla Foods amba board director, Johnnie Russell, said: “We are extremely disappointed to be in a position of having to reduce our milk price to our owners, after seven consecutive increases. During that period, we have delivered an additional £76 million in milk price increases to our owners since September 2016. The reduction in our April price is unwelcome news.
NFU dairy board chairman Michael Oakes (pictured above) said: “The price reduction of 0.79ppl announced by Arla for the April payment is extremely disappointing for its UK members and for the whole of the dairy sector. This is the first milk price drop in 2017 by a major UK milk buyer. With daily milk deliveries starting to recover before the annual Spring Flush, this clearly shows that the market is still in an extremely fragile state.
"That’s why the NFU is organising an NFU Dairy Risk Management conference on the 6th April, bringing together the whole dairy supply chain to consider new ways of managing price risk.
“Paramount in managing milk price risk is better management of supply and demand both at farm and processor level. This includes more accurate forecasting of supply and demand and sharing of future growth strategies forecasts.”