Morrisons’ Milk for Farmers initiative has been given a real grilling since it was launched at the beginning of last month. Four weeks on, NFU chief dairy adviser Sian Davies asks - what do we know about the initiative?
She writes:
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Unfortunately, as with any new initiative there have been hiccups. Labelling and promotion of the initiative have been the major talking points.Some of these issues have been resolved and I don’t believe that Morrisons nor Arla went out to mislead the consumer with this campaign. Actually, I believe quite the opposite. It’s made complicated by Arla’s position on farmgate milk pricing and how income is shared across its membership but farmers who are members of Arla understand this.
This is how it works. Any income received by Arla is shared across its European business with all its members receiving the same benefit or otherwise. So retail money secured in the UK is shared among it’s 12,000 European members (of which over 3,000 are in Britain). Sales of Lurpack in Britain benefit UK farmers even though the product is made with Danish milk. It’s widely known that Arla UK made a loss last year but that being part of a bigger Arla EU business meant that it’s UK members’ milk price didn’t fall to the levels it could have as a standalone business.
Instead of pulling yet another initiative down, let’s try to encourage more of these. There are a number of other retailers and processors than can choose to offer something similar – which could ensure that all the extra money returns to British farmers.
And let’s look at focusing at others out there other than the top ten retailers – I think they’ve had enough media attention of late. Milk and dairy products at food service and in food manufacturing are rarely put under the same microscope as those at retail and it’s about time this changed.