A colleague took a phone call last week from a Tesco spokeswoman saying that they would have an announcement this week which we "might be interested in". Talk about underselling it!
Tesco's decision to pay more to 150 farmers supply local milk and to offer dedicated milk supply contracts to about 850 producers and a base price of 22 pence per litre is a real breakthrough.
Although it will only directly impact on 1000 farmers the benefits should be felt through the whole of the dairy industry. The market leader has moved and hopefully others will follow.
It's not the whole solution - what about milk going into other dairy products like cheese and butter? Don't farmers supplying those markets need a sustainable price too?
Nor is it as ground-breaking as Tesco would like us to believe. Haven't M&S, Waitrose and even Asda being doing similar things for some time?
But if the rest of the retailers follow suit then it could mark the start of a much brighter future for the dairy industry.