New Milk Brand To Pay Percentage Direct To Farmers

A new milk brand is to be launched that will pay 10 pence-per-litre of the retail price direct to dairy farmers.

Launched by supermarket chain Morrisons, the new milk brand will go on sale later this year and is aimed at shoppers who want to directly support dairy farmers.

Morrisons Milk for Farmers follows a meeting between the UK's four main farming unions and representatives of the supermarket held on Tuesday. Farmers across the UK have been staging protests over the price of milk, claiming that they are being paid less than the cost of production.

Morrisons' Corporate Services Director Martyn Jones said: "We recognise that the current market for liquid milk is impacting on hardworking dairy farmers and their families.

"We want to reassure the industry that the retail price we charge for Morrisons milk reflects the highly competitive retail market. It is not linked to the price we pay our milk suppliers. 

"We want to offer practical help by launching a range of 4-pint milk at a retail premium of 10p per litre, all of which will be passed back directly to dairy farmers. We will stock this product in all our stores, offering our customers the choice to support dairy farmers directly." 

Morrisons has also released more details of how it pays for milk from its majority supplier Arla, which buys milk from farmers. 

Martyn Jones added: "We also want to clarify that our current three year contract with Arla, who supply the majority of our milk, uses a cost model that automatically adjusts the price that we pay for milk, based on a combination of the independently set farmgate price and other commodities such as diesel and plastics that influence the cost of milk. 

"We can confirm that we have asked our milk suppliers not to pass on further decreases in the current farmgate price to us, but to share any benefit with the dairy farmer instead." 

(MH/JP)