From the FT, March 2014:
Mark Allen, chief executive of Dairy Crest, one of Britain’s biggest milk processors and maker of Cathedral City cheddar, says: “It is a much better time to be in dairy than for many years”.
Milk producers are luxuriating in a rare combination of rising prices and falling costs, and improving terms of trade between them and the supermarkets and processors.
Even though three large supermarket groups – Tesco, J Sainsbury and Co-operative Food – cut the retail price of 2 litres of milk to £1 this month, it is not the farmers being squeezed this time. Changes to farming contracts, and an improved relationship between producers and retailers, mean the supermarkets are more likely to take the margin hit.
From the BBC, January 2015:
MPs have urged the government to do more to protect dairy farmers from sharp falls in milk prices.
The Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said farmers were being forced out of business every week by factors beyond their control. The remit of the government's groceries watchdog should be extended to cover dairy suppliers, its report said.
The government said it was doing all it could to help farmers cope with the "volatility of the global market"...
BBC environment correspondent Claire Marshall said to keep cattle well fed and looked after costs a farmer about 30p for each liter of milk produced - but most were being paid just 20p a liter.
"Intense competition among supermarkets is also having an effect," she said. "In several supermarkets you can now buy four pints of milk for just 89p."
Farmers have held protests, urging supermarkets to pay more for their milk.
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