Wiseman to cut price it pays milk producers
Wiseman to cut price it pays milk producers
ROBERT Wiseman Dairies has indicated that it will be cutting the price it pays to milk producers in the same week it reported a 7.7% rise in operating profit to £20.3m.
Chairman Alan Wiseman blamed other dairy companies for the move. Their failure to match Wisemans 2p/litre price rise from April had left the firm out on a limb.
"The relatively high price we pay to our farmers results in us becoming uncompetitive in comparison to other major dairy companies. This is not a situation we can allow to continue and we are currently reviewing our prices paid to our milk suppliers," he said.
A company spokesman added that it had been profoundly disappointing that other dairy companies had failed to pass on the full 2p/litre price rise that supermarkets had agreed to pay for milk.
"At a time of very real difficulty in the farming community, it is very sad that the rest of the processing sector chose to make a profit rather than take the chance to pass all the money back to dairy farmers."
As well as the increase in operating profit, accounts for the year to Mar 31, 2001 show liquid milk sales volume up 7.8% to 811m litres, and turnover up 4.7% on the year to £300.2m.
Mr Wiseman said the results reflected a satisfactory years performance. Profit before tax rose 3.3% to £18.5m and basic earnings per share increased by 2.8% to 15.69p. He also reported the £2m purchase of Lordswood Dairy, a milk distributor selling about 40m litres/year to independent retailers in south-west England.
Meanwhile, the Wiseman business has to contend with an Office of Fair Trading investigation into possible breaches of the Competition Act in the Scottish liquid milk market.
It emerged late last week that OFT investigators had raided the offices of Wiseman, Graham Dairies and Scottish Milk and Ballantyne, citing "reasonable grounds to suspect infringements of the Competition Act".
Mr Wiseman was disappointed that a new investigation was under way, after being cleared last year. *