Milk

[rauschwerk]

This situation http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...s-7953496.html seems to me a classic example of markets not working. The reason is that its the big businesses, not the actual drinkers of the milk, who call the shots.

The cost of milk amounts to no more than 3.5% of my household budget so I can't say that I'd be particularly bothered if it were to increase by as much as half. Why, then, are supermarkets and companies such as Wisemans so obsessed with paying so little to farmers? After all, they don't pass savings on: Wiseman's, recently taken over by a German company, recently increased their retail price by 4.5p/litre, at the same time reducing by 3.7p/litre the price they pay to farmers. That sounds like sheer greed to me.

I now find myself in a quandary. Dairy Crest currently deliver my milk but I see they are cutting their prices to suppliers. My most convenient local shops are Tesco and McColl (who sell milk from Wiseman). But my nearest Waitrose is too far away to make a special journey.

How can we best support these beleaguered diary farmers?

[Lateralthinking1]

This situation http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...s-7953496.html seems to me a classic example of markets not working. The reason is that its the big businesses, not the actual drinkers of the milk, who call the shots.

The cost of milk amounts to no more than 3.5% of my household budget so I can't say that I'd be particularly bothered if it were to increase by as much as half. Why, then, are supermarkets and companies such as Wisemans so obsessed with paying so little to farmers? After all, they don't pass savings on: Wiseman's, recently taken over by a German company, recently increased their retail price by 4.5p/litre, at the same time reducing by 3.7p/litre the price they pay to farmers. That sounds like sheer greed to me.

I now find myself in a quandary. Dairy Crest currently deliver my milk but I see they are cutting their prices to suppliers. My most convenient local shops are Tesco and McColl (who sell milk from Wiseman). But my nearest Waitrose is too far away to make a special journey.

How can we best support these beleaguered diary farmers?

One word that isn't mentioned here is newsagents. Two local newsagents, one admittedly a McColl, the other not, both a reasonable way towards becoming semi groceries (but neither what you would call a corner grocers shop), are by far and away the cheapest for milk here, particularly in larger volumes. I would imagine that this is what the major supermarkets are responding to mainly. I have sympathy for the farmers but also wish to retain our smaller local shops. How else are the latter to compete?

[ahinton]

This situation http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...s-7953496.html seems to me a classic example of markets not working. The reason is that its the big businesses, not the actual drinkers of the milk, who call the shots.

The cost of milk amounts to no more than 3.5% of my household budget so I can't say that I'd be particularly bothered if it were to increase by as much as half. Why, then, are supermarkets and companies such as Wisemans so obsessed with paying so little to farmers? After all, they don't pass savings on: Wiseman's, recently taken over by a German company, recently increased their retail price by 4.5p/litre, at the same time reducing by 3.7p/litre the price they pay to farmers. That sounds like sheer greed to me.

I now find myself in a quandary. Dairy Crest currently deliver my milk but I see they are cutting their prices to suppliers. My most convenient local shops are Tesco and McColl (who sell milk from Wiseman). But my nearest Waitrose is too far away to make a special journey.

How can we best support these beleaguered diary farmers?

Could you not perhaps consider using the Waitrose online ordering and delivery service; my nearest one's some 25 miles distant and I find that it works very well indeed.

[DracoM]

Depends where you live. In Ultima Thule, zilch Waitrose.
I get milk from local farm delivered in proper glass bottles 55p a litre. Yes, more expensive than supermarkets, BUT it is on the doorstep by 6.30 a.m. in all weathers. Maybe this is the way farmer collectives may have to go.

The demise of the MMB years ago has opened the way to these profiteering middle men. I am ashamed of Brit supermarket chains that are conniving in the crushing of all but the very biggest Brit dairy herds.

[amateur51]

As usual Farming Today is your top guide

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q

The episode you're looking for is 18 July 2012 - on iPlayer for 7 days

[ahinton]

Depends where you live. In Ultima Thule, zilch Waitrose.

Whilst member rauschwerk wrote "my nearest Waitrose is too far away to make a special journey", he did not suggest - nor do I imagine - that he lives in Ultima Thule where, even today, there is "zilch" most things.

I get milk from local farm delivered in proper glass bottles 55p a litre. Yes, more expensive than supermarkets, BUT it is on the doorstep by 6.30 a.m. in all weathers. Maybe this is the way farmer collectives may have to go.

That's very cheap, but not because of big business forcing the price down but by the cutting out of most of the middleman apparatus. In my little village in the southern Charente, I can walk to the dairy with a sterilised bottle which they'll fill for 50c per litre, although this is raw (i.e. unpasteurised) milk that's very hard to obtain legally in UK -and it's the finest milk that I've ever tasted. But if 55p per litre is really "more expensive than supermarkets", what on earth do your local supermarkets charge? Mine tend to charge around £1 per litre! You don't live in Ultima Thule, do you?...

[Anna]

As usual Farming Today is your top guide

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q

The episode you're looking for is 18 July 2012 - on iPlayer for 7 days

You beat me to it Ams but I was going to flag up the Saturday programme (available for 3 more days) which was quite heart-breaking with interviews of dairy farmers

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ksb2k

I use very little milk, 2 pints pw max, (from Waitrose or Marks) so would willingly pay whatever increase necessary to keep the UK dairy business viable. It's an absolute scandal that we are now no longer self sufficient in milk that we have to import it from France to make yoghurt! The combination of supermarkets and the CAP are slowly killing farming.

[DracoM]

Pretty depressing. You just know that as soon as the current furore dies down, ASDA et al will creep the price to farmers down once more.
I note that Wiseman's were not at that EFRA Cttee.

[Mary Chambers]

This is tricky. My milk is delivered very efficiently by Dairy Crest. I didn't realise they were cutting payment to the farmers, which is obviouly bad - but I am keen to keep doorstep deliveries going as long as possible because they are such a lifeline to many people. I'll probably be about as successful as I was in trying to keep the local post office open

[ahinton]

This is tricky. My milk is delivered very efficiently by Dairy Crest. I didn't realise they were cutting payment to the farmers, which is obviouly bad - but I am keen to keep doorstep deliveries going as long as possible because they are such a lifeline to many people. I'll probably be about as successful as I was in trying to keep the local post office open

Well, there are certainly no doorstep deliveries where I am and there weren't in Bath where I lived previously either. Dairy farms, like pubs, are going out of business at an alarming rate in England (and I doubt that the situation is much different in Wales or Scotland) and most of those businesses going to the wall are the very small producers that might othewise keep some kind of service alive.

[Nick Armstrong]

I use very little milk, 2 pints pw max, (from Waitrose or Marks) so would willingly pay whatever increase necessary to keep the UK dairy business viable. It's an absolute scandal that we are now no longer self sufficient in milk that we have to import it from France to make yoghurt! The combination of supermarkets and the CAP are slowly killing farming.

I love my milk and use more than that - but otherwise completely concur with your post.

(I'd put in a word for Tesco's Organic: delicious )

[Lateralthinking1]

There was a gap of many years here before the return of doorstep delivery. A lorry rather than a float. And he drives like an absolute madman.

[gradus]

Presumably huge dairy units - see The Archers - are the future for the 'industry'. Not if I can help avoid it, but how?
Suffolk is not dairy country and I have no idea how to buy milk that supports the traditional dairy farmer, there are no farmers nearby delivering their milk and none at local farmers markets, so how to beat the greedy corporate b......s?

[marthe]

Interesting discussion about dairy farms and milk. In my lifetime, many dairy farms have been sold when the older generation generation of farmers dies, and are now filled with McMansions. However, the remaining dairy farmers of Rhode Island and local land conservation groups are turning the tide. We buy locally produced milk at the supermarket. The Rhodyfresh cooperative has worked hard to keep dairy farms going...and their milk is delicious. http://www.rhodyfresh.com/index.html I remember being able to get milk fresh from the cow when I lived in England. We were living in the country next to a dairy farm. The milk was the best I've ever had.

[Resurrection Man]

A very timely thread and I agree wholeheartedly. I am struggling to understand the drivers for this. Is the price of milk perceived as such an emotive issue? Why do supermarkets suppress the retail price? I seethed when I heard some stupid woman contributor on Radio 4 talk about 'greedy' farmers. Backside...out of...talking...re-arrange into a well-known phrase or saying.

Here is an interesting price comparison as to the costs and take-home pay over a span of 60 years.


1952 weekly wage £7.50 Today £500. So that's about 65x.

So how about costs? (Figures in brackets are 1952 prices factored x65)

A house 1952 £2000 (£130,000) today £163,000 ...... quite a hike but we all knew that.

A pint of beer 1952 9 pence...that's just under 4p (£2.47) today £2.80 (I wish!) ......... not doing so badly then

A pint of milk 1952 4 pence ..that's 1.6p in decimal (£1.08) today 50p .....which explains why so many dairy farmers are giving up and the abuse of power by the supermarkets.