Morrisons slammed over ‘misleading’ Milk for Farmers

A supermarket shopper has accused Morrisons of misleading the public over its premium milk brand, which suppliers claim will add an extra £5m in income to dairy farmers this year.
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The supermarket’s Milk for Farmers, which went on sale in early October, sits alongside its own-brand milk and leaves the decision with the consumer over whether they are willing to pay more to help dairy farmers.
The premium brand sees an extra 23p – or 10p/litre – from every four-pint carton sold “go directly to the dairy farmer”.
 
But although the Milk for Farmers brand is packaged with an image of the Union flag, the extra money raised through sales is spread across the 13,500 European dairy farmers in the Arla co-operative, which supplies Morrisons with its milk.
About 3,000 of these Arla suppliers are British dairy farmers – so less than one-third of the estimated £5m made from sales of the premium milk this year will go directly to British dairy farmers.
Ash Amirahmadi, head of milk and member services at Arla Foods UK, claimed the scheme was due to bring an extra £5m into dairy farmers’ pockets this year.
Speaking at an Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) committee meeting on farmgate prices, Mr Amirahmadi said Morrisons’ premium milk was selling “seven times better than expected” with “all that money going directly to dairy farmers”.
The Milk for Farmers pack (pictured above) states “We give 23p back to the farmer”, with a Union flag appearing pictured behind.
Last month, one Morrisons shopper contacted the supermarket’s customer services to ask for clarification on where the money goes – and subsequently, what the share of profit is for British dairy farmers.
Dissatisfied with Morrisons’ responses, the disgruntled shopper contacted Farmers Weekly.
He provided the full email exchange (see below). To protect the person’s identity, the shopper is known only as “Mr H”.
Mr H said: “It’s good that Morrisons decided to do something to help struggling British dairy farmers by selling its premium milk.
“However, I think Morrisons should play it straight and tell the public that this product is not only supporting British dairy farmers.”
A Morrisons spokeswoman said: “Morrisons doesn’t directly return the additional 23p to dairy farmers. This is returned by our supplier, Arla.
“We have no influence over how Arla distributes its money but we have a commitment from them that it will be paid back to farmers.
“We are pleased with how Milk for Farmers has been received by shoppers and will continue to listen to their comments.”

An Arla spokeswoman said: “Arla Foods is a farmer-owned dairy cooperative and as such, all revenue is shared equally amongst our farmer owners, across all owner countries, regardless of what market and product their milk is used.

“Consequently, British farmers benefit from the sale of all products sold inside and outside of the UK marketplace. Retailers outside of the UK have similar initiatives to what we have in the UK and British farmers are benefitting from those.”

Source: FarmersWeekly

Mirá También

Así lo expresó Domingo Possetto, secretario de la seccional Rafaela, quien además, afirmó que a los productores «habitualmente los ignoran los gobiernos». Además, reconoció la labor de los empresarios de las firmas locales y aseguró que están «esperanzados» con la negociación entre SanCor y Adecoagro.

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