South-west creamery Dairy Crest has announced that it will cut the milk price it pays to its Davidstow farmers by 0.5p/L from February 1, 2019.
The firm processes 500 million litres of milk a year from 330 farms and is best known for brands Cathedral City, Davidstow, Clover and FryLight.
In September 2018, the Company introduced a supplementary payment of 0.5p/L to reflect feed shortages caused by extreme weather conditions. However, since then, the situation has improved.
This additional payment will, therefore, be withdrawn from February 1, 2019, bringing the overall price paid to farmers at that date to 29.9p/L. These changes have been agreed with Dairy Crest Direct (DCD).
“We have provided our farmers with both visibility and certainty over the past six months by maintaining a steady milk price and introducing a milk price floor until the end of January,” said Chris Thomson, group procurement director at Dairy Crest.
While this move will be disappointing for our farmers, we always aim to pay a fair, competitive price for our milk and, even with this reduction, our price remains higher than many other dairy companies.
Dairy Crest Direct chairman Steve Bone added: “We have been keeping a close eye on market developments and, therefore, this reduction in price is not unexpected.”
