“Judge by performance, not predicted performance,” he said.
“Saputo has not stepped a foot wrong since it has been in this country.”
Mr Mulvany said bringing MG suppliers up to equal footing on weighted average farmgate milk price with Saputo’s Warrnambool Cheese and Butter suppliers was good for the industry, but said it would need to seriously look at its payment system if it had any long-term interest in Victorian dairy farmers.
This comes as Murray Goulburn suppliers are set to receive an extra 40c a kilogram of milk solids on to their farmgate milk price today to lift the average weighted price to $5.60/kgMS going forward.
MG outlined details of the Saputo transaction on Friday, telling supplier/shareholders that the deal included step-ups totalling $114 million.
Another 40c/kgMS would be back-paid for milk supplied from the start of the season — July 1 until the end of last month once Saputo had acquired MG, which is expected to be in the first half of next year.
There would also be an additional 40c/kgMS loyalty payment in the following financial year paid to “active” MG suppliers as a “loyalty payment”.
United Dairyfarmers of Victoria president Adam Jenkins said the increase in the farmgate milk price meant “everyone was back on an even keel”. The cash payment would inject some confidence as MG suppliers had been “hanging out for that for quite some time”, he said.
“It is a good opportunity to get (suppliers) back up to the market and then this puts pressure on other milk companies,” he said.
Saputo has said it would pay a “competitive” farmgate milk price to MG suppliers going forward.
At the AGM, Murray Goulburn said Saputo would pay whatever was higher, its WCB price or the average of the two largest processors.
