DC leaves milk price unchanged

DAIRY CREST has left its July milk price unchanged, despite warning in May that there could be justification for a cut.

Arthur Reeves, the milk processor‘s purchasing director said the July reduction in intervention prices had not affected the commodity market as much as expected.

“We‘re tying very hard to make sure we don‘t talk the market down.”

But he said the firm was concerned that co-op Milk Link was still paying significantly less for cheese milk and wouldn’t rule out future cuts if the situation continued.

The average price for liquid contracts was now 19.5p/litre before seasonality, said Mr Reeves. Cheese contracts were getting about 19.1p/litre.

But about 10% of Dairy Crest‘s direct suppliers were still on old contracts and these would be cut by 0.6p/litre to encourage farmers to switch to the new ones, he added.