Britain’s largest producer of branded and private label fresh milk, butter, yogurt, desserts and dairy ingredients products has unveiled a series of measures to help supplying farmers build vibrant dairy businesses for the future.
Müller has already confirmed an unprecedented £100m of investment in its UK network of dairies so that it can build an additional £700m worth of sales of dairy products made with milk from British farmers, by 2020.
Now the business wants to increase confidence and resilience amongst its dairy farmer suppliers against a backdrop of volatile and unpredictable global dairy markets, and uncertainty surrounding future support for farmers following the UK’s departure from the EU.
Müller has confirmed:
- A 1.31ppl increase in its farm gate milk price with effect from 1st September 2017, taking its standard litre price to 29.00ppl
- The introduction of a new Müller Direct Futures Contract option, giving dairy farmers the opportunity to agree a monthly price for up to 25% of their milk volume, for 12 months ahead
- The introduction of Müller Farm Insight, a new service for dairy farmers offering valuable data, welfare tools and benchmarking, to help their businesses
- The launch of Müller Direct, which comprises the 700 of the company’s 1,800 farmer suppliers who aren’t currently part of groups aligned to major supermarket customers. Müller Direct farmers are the focus for all of the above initiatives.
Müller agriculture director Rob Hutchison said: “There is a lot of uncertainty out there but we are optimistic. Britain remains one of the best places in the world to produce milk and Müller is investing heavily to ensure that consumers will be able to buy more and more dairy products made in Britain with milk from British farmers.
“We want to work with farmers to realise our shared ambitions as the basis of a progressive industry with the security and confidence to invest. The steps we are outlining today are early measures which signal our intent.”
