Plans to explore dairy market development were confirmed when the AHDB Dairy board agreed a total budget of up to £3.5m over the next three years for future activity.
This provisional budget represents an extra £1.8m in total over the three years compared with the draft market development budget which went out for consultation.
During the Board meeting, members also agreed to work with Dairy UK to establish a dairy marketing forum to explore opportunities for a co-funded European Union campaign which would be subject to an application in the next EU funding window.
Board chairman Gwyn Jones said: “This gives us a clear chance to develop market opportunities for the dairy industry.
“It must, however, be recognised it’s not the whole answer for the prevailing challenging market conditions the industry is facing.”
Dr David Dobbin, Chairman of Dairy UK said: “We welcome this decision. It is vital that the dairy industry educates UK consumers on the nutritional benefits of dairy and promotes the excellence of our dairy products in key exports markets. Developing demand for our quality dairy produce and focusing on being more market-led will be key to improve the state of the industry going forward.”
Amanda Ball AHDB Dairy strategy director said, “This is welcome news as it give us the opportunity to create positive demand. We will also work with Dairy UK and its exporters group to highlight what AHDB currently does in other sectors and use that to identify opportunities for dairy.
“There is much to be done and we are already in preliminary discussions with Dairy UK.”
Dr Judith Bryans, Chief Executive of Dairy UK said, “This is very positive news. Working together we have a unique opportunity to develop long term sustainable consumption in the domestic market as well as in international markets.
“The next steps will be making sure we develop the right offering to leverage EU funding. This is not a short term fix, this is about a sustained focus on developing demand for dairy with current and future generations.”
