fair milk pricing - I've just sent an email to Dairy Crest

[sleepymum50]

I get my milk through my milkman but looked at my milk bottle (yes its an old fashioned glass bottle) and it comes from Dairy Crest.

An article I read yesterday said they are one of the big milk processing companies that are cutting the price to farmers - so I've sent them an email to ask them what price they pay. I don't want to stop using my local milkman as he needs his job - but I want to do something about this.

Perhaps if lots of people start contacting the big companies direct - we can let them know this matters to us.

I will let you know when I get a reply

Unfortunately it doesn't matter to quite a lot of people. People want their milk and other staples to be cheap. Supermarkets want cheap staples. People read about farming subsidiaries which are reported in the trashy press and don't completely understand them, and assume farmers get heaps of money for doing nothing.

In short, those of us that do care - enough to boycott the dairies which don't pay enough money to farmers, are in the minority. It's a very sad state of affairs.

Sleepy I'd be interested to see what reply you get. We also have a Dairy Crest milkman and I naively thought that this was a better deal for farmers than buying milk from a supermarket chain because we pay a bit more for the milk but I guess not

from what i can gather, you are actually helping to fund the problem, as because of the higher price you pay, the company (in the case Dairy Crest) can afford to sell the milk they don't use on their round more cheaply to the supermarket.

I don't have a milkman, but do use milk. It did cross my mind a couple of weeks ago that milk, despite being costly to produce, is cheap.
When we lived in Switzerland, some local farmers went on strike. Emmi had dropped the price per litre for four years running. For three days they milked their cows as usual, but poured the milk down the drain.
Some farmers gave it away at the gate. Four days after the strike started, Emmi caved in and paid them a realisitic price.

Hi there
Visit Farmers for Action's website consumer section for all the info you need;
www.farmersforaction.org/15.html Dairycrest are one of the worst for the farmer, but like you say if you cancel your milk and others follow then your milkman will lose his job and he doesn't have a thousand acres to fall back on. We should lobby the processors and supermarkets, farmers deserve a fair price. Perhaps you could join their protests, or they could have a PR stunt, such as giving away their milk for free direct to the consumer for one week - see how the supermarkets like that!!

Petite, I agree that most people can't think far enough ahead to see why this matters, but maybe this thread might help them do so?

That would be wonderful sieglinde