Milk Link announces further 0.5ppl milk price increase
Milk Link has announced further milk price increases and the introduction of new, complementary, market related pricing schedules. Overall the impact of the price rises will amount to a c. 0.5ppl increase in the total amount Milk Link pays for its Members' milk from 1 July. This means that on average Milk Link has increased its Member price by c. 1.25ppl since 1 April.
The new pricing schedules are:
A new Westcountry Liquid schedule, which will bring Members on this in line with those on the existing London Liquid schedule.
A new Milk Link Manufacturing schedule will see an increase in the amount paid on constituents and at the same time the butterfat 'collar' introduced in April 2006 will be removed. In addition from 1 April 2008, Members will be able to choose between the current A&B system and an alternative "old style" seasonality system. It is important to note that this will not have a negative impact on our Members' price.
A new Channel Island Manufacturing schedule will see an increase in the Channel Island premium payment, compared to the current Channel Island price.
In addition, Milk Link will offer all those on its organic constituent schedule the opportunity to move to the higher priced organic liquid schedule. Similarly, all Members in the South East of England will be offered the opportunity to move onto Milk Link's London Liquid schedule.
The above changes are in line with Milk Link's stated objective of offering all of its Members the option to move onto market related pricing schedules. This started in 2006 with the introduction of the London Liquid schedule and was followed by customer specific schedules such as the Rodda's Creamery schedule for Members in West Cornwall. Building on this, the new pricing schedules seek to ensure that milk production is tailored to the requirements of the end user.
Milk Link has written to all its Members to inform them of the new pricing schedules and how these will apply to them.
Commenting on the announcements, Barry Nicholls, Milk Link Chief Executive said: "The price rises demonstrate our commitment to increasing returns to our Members for their milk, further strengthen our milk pool and give our customers greater security of supply. Above all, by introducing further market related pricing we will be able to leverage greater efficiencies within our processing operations from having the right milk in the right place at the right time
"The increases announced for July follow swiftly on from our 1 April milk price rises and £2.4 million processing interest payment which we have paid to our Members this week."
