Dairy giant Muller has unveiled a series of measures to help farmers build their dairy businesses for the future, amid growing uncertainty.
Müller has confirmed £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.
Muller has said it wants to increase confidence and resilience amongst its dairy farmer suppliers against a backdrop of 'volatile and unpredictable' global dairy markets.
It says there is uncertainty surrounding future support for farmers following the UK’s departure from the EU.
Müller has thus 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.
It has also introduced 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.
Müller Farm Insight, a new service for dairy farmers offering data, welfare tools and benchmarking, to help their businesses, has also been opened.
Finally, Muller has launched Müller Direct. This 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 the company is optimistic.
He said: “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.”
