Arla Foods Milk Partnership farmers are to benefit from a new fat incentive, as Arla begins production of own label retail packet butter at Westbury Dairies. AFMP members, aligned to the company’s standard litre price, will benefit from an increase of 0.15ppl as of 1 December 2011.
Arla is extending and developing the Westbury site to create a dedicated butter making and packing facility, increasing the company’s need for butterfat supply.
Ash Amirahmadi, Head of Milk Procurement at Arla, said: "Arla is going to need more butterfat now it has started production of retail packet butter at the Westbury facility, and we believe our members should benefit from supplying their milk into an added value product, which is why we have introduced the fat incentive.
As part of Arla’s strategy to maximise the growth of value added products, we are continually looking at ways in which adding value to milk can deliver a greater return to our members."
The incentive is in line with Arla’s strategy of adding value to milk and follows on from AFMP members recently benefitting from the successful growth of Cravendale, Arla’s branded milk. The brand gained a five per cent share of the UK liquid milk market, which meant a premium of 1ppl on sales is shared across Arla’s non-aligned members.
Retail butter production began at Westbury in August and will enable Arla to supply more of the UK market with butter made from British cream.
Andy West, Arla’s senior director at Westbury, said: "To date a proportion of Arla’s retail own label butter has been produced at our Settle facility, but the increased capacity available at Westbury will mean that we can consolidate all of Arla UK’s own label butter requirements into one site."
