Cows make supermarket sweep as farmers stage new milk protest

On Sunday a group of protesters entered a supermarket in Stafford, central England, with two cows, to “show” the animals just how cheap their milk was.

“Morrisons Milk for Farmers” will be more expensive than other milk on the supermarket’s shelves, but Morrisons say that all of the price difference will go directly back to the farmers.

Farmers took their cows supermarket shopping with them as part of a protest over milk prices.

Farmers estimate that it costs between 30 to 32p to produce each litre of milk, meaning they are losing nearly 10p per litre.

The move comes after Arla, Britain’s biggest milk co-operative, announced a price cut of 0.8 p per litre – taking the standard litre price to 23.01p for its UK members, prompting the protests.

The police left the scene at 1.50pm.

“A recent survey found that more than half of customers said they would be willing to do so”.

This compares to the normal supermarket price which ranges from 89p to £1.

A British Retail Consortium spokesman said: “There is no connection between the price of milk in supermarkets and the price retailers pay farmers for their milk”.

The NFU said retailers Tesco (TSCO.L), M&S (MKS.L), Waitrose, Sainsbury’s (SBRY.L) and Co-op paid farmers a price based on the cost of production, but others – including Morrisons (MRW.L), Asda (WMT.N), Aldi and Lidl – did not.

DAIRY farmers have warned that drastic changes need to be made within a matter of weeks to the price of milk to save the industry.

The four main farming unions, the NFU Cymru, the NFU, NFU Scotland and the Ulster Farmers Union, will meet with farmers in London to discuss the issue.

“It’s a crisis I haven’t seen in my farming career”.

Government, retailers and the food service industry have to “step up to the plate” to tackle the crisis facing the British farming industry, a farming group has said.

The new brand, “Morrisons Milk for Farmers”, will go on sale this autumn and is aimed at customers who wish to directly support dairy farmers.

He added: “I think we can only do so much, we’re doing our little bit to help at a time when clearly we have both consumers operating on tight budgets but we also have hard-working dairy farmers and their families feeling the squeeze”.

Some farmers are experiencing a “crisis” after being paid less for their milk than the cost of production, the UK National Farmers’ Union has said.

Morrisons said it was not seeking any further reductions in milk prices and would continue talks with the NFU.

We will take these protests as far as we can.

“We are not in a position to avoid the impact of these powerful and cyclical market fundamentals but we are continuing to invest heavily to create a diverse dairy business in the UK and to work collaboratively with our farmer board to align supply with demand.”

“Naturally, we are concerned about the challenges faced by British farmers now as a result of volatility in global market conditions”.