Dairy Crest has announced that it is increasing the milk price it pays to its farmers by 0.5 pence per litre to 32ppl from 1st December 2017.
The British owned dairy giant will increase the milk price it pays to its Davidstow farmers. This has been agreed with Dairy Crest Direct (DCD).
“Even though dairy prices are beginning to steady again, we wanted our farmers to receive the benefits of the recent all-time high, particularly as we go into the more challenging winter months,” commented Chris Thomson,
Group Procurement Director at Dairy Crest. “We remain committed, as ever, to supporting our farmers and paying them a fair price for the high quality milk they supply to us.”
DCD Chairman, Steve Bone, said: “We are pleased that Dairy Crest has agreed to increase the Davidstow price by 0.5ppl. In our view this reinforces the Company’s commitment to its producers by paying a competitive milk price.”
'Good growth'
High cream and butter prices failed to negatively affect Dairy Crest’s pre-tax profits which increased 871 per cent to £151.4m in the six months to September 30, according to new figures published.
Mark Allen, Chief Executive, said: “We have had an encouraging first half, with Cathedral City, Clover and Frylight delivering good growth in both volumes and value. Cathedral City, the nation's favourite cheese, continues to go from strength to strength and has produced exceptional growth over the period.
“We have delivered good profit growth despite a record high cream price, which has a temporary but significant impact on input costs in our butter and spreads business.
“We expect to accelerate sales of demineralised whey and GOS in the second half of this year. In conjunction with our partner Fonterra we are making good progress in developing sales channels for our products.
“Our strong brands and the quality and efficiency of our operating facilities mean that we are well positioned to grow. While we expect butter input costs to continue to be challenging for the remainder of the year, we are confident in delivering our full year expectations.”
