Milk prices

[watervole]

 Milk has become incredibly cheap in Co-op recently, and I see that this is a general trend.

The organic milk can't compete in price.  It used to be only a little bit more expensive, now, it's nearly twice the price, and the amount of shelf space it gets has dropped dramatically as people are buying the really cheap milk.

I'm worried that the organic milk producer could be forced out of business while this loss-leading price war continues.

So, I'm buying all organic at present. 

Right now, we can afford the extra and if helps someone stay in business, then it's worth it.  Because this sort of price cutting hurts all milk producers, and buying the cheap stuff just encourages the supermarkets to keep putting pressure on the farmers.

Comments

[lexin]

I buy organic milk, too. I feel I must support those producers who sell it.

[ranunculus]

I'm in complete sympathy with you on this. That is what we do as well.

[mirrorshard]

Either that, or switch to buying milk at Tesco because they actually pay the farmers more than the cost of production, unlike the Co-op, Asda, or Morrisons.

[tlanti.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I read your post about milk.... mainly as I have a rather large grocry shop to do having run out of everything and have now decided about one item that will be on the list...

[murphys-lawyer.livejournal.com]

For our part, we get our milk from a small co-op and delivered to the doorstep in bottles. We're assured the farmers get a gate price that more than covers the cost of producing the stuff, so it helps keep them, the co-op, and their delivery man in work.

How long this will last, I don't know. I'm seeing a push by corporations (nothing so active as a plot by those who "run" them - this is a reflex move by the alien/hive mind AIs that corporations are) to switch all the UK's dairy farming to large industrial processes. More profits for them, cheaper milk for us... and more farmers out of business, plus the milk will have to be fortified with all the stuff it used to get when the cows had at least a proportion of grass/hay/silage in their feed, not just processed maize.

[rpdom.livejournal.com]

We only buy goats milk, due to the fact that the lactose in it is much easier to digest that that in cows milk.

It is quite a bit more expensive, but we don't use much, and it does taste good - creamy without being too heavy.

It also seems to stay fresh for a lot longer.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

I do know this problem from here. More - I actually live with people who do Dairy Farming. It is - I would call it a crime. For their work they have really ridiculous sum of money. Also here dairy farming is dying...
Still, our milk is of the highest quality and yet we have to drink imported product (and this is not only about milk!!!) that are not only of poor quality but even contain dangerous things. No help, this was forced on us by the EU...

[cobrabay.livejournal.com]

I see that Morrisons & the Co-op have announced they are increasing payments to farmers. As switching to buying my milk from Morrisons is a reasonably convenient option, I'll be doing that until the other stores follow suit.

[frostfox.livejournal.com]

Having a couple of friends in the dairy business, I always buy organic. So do they.

FF

[raspberryfool.livejournal.com]

I don't buy a lot of milk, about a pint a week (and it's usually out-of-date by the time I finish it!) and I buy Tesco's organic semi-skimmed because it stays fresh much longer than the regular milk, for a few pence more. I always thought the Co-operative was supposed to take an ethical stance with grocery suppliers, but it seems they lied. More power to the farmers, I hope they get their message across. It would be awful if the British farmers went out of business; we'd probably have to import it from China like everything else. :-(

[rockwell-666.livejournal.com]

I buy 1 litre cartons of fully skimmed Smart Price UHT milk from ASDA (because it's fully skimmed you don't get the Ultra Horrible Taste caused by the fat being cooked by the UHT process).

Generally I buy about 3 cartons a week (just for myself!) and I have 3 in the fridge such that if I can't shop for some reason I've always got a reserve :-)

It costs about 50p per litre and I'd have no problems were it to go up by 5p or 10p a litre if I knew that that money was going to the farmers so that they didn't have to sell it below cost. Unfortunately if the price went up, the shops would probably just pocket more profit...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

The Co-op claim to be addressing this apparent ethical anomaly:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/10346373

(We have for many years bought all organic milk anyway, for ecological reasons, so it doesn't make much odds to us. But any story which exposes an aspect of the iniquity of the industrial-scale farming/selling industry is probably a good thing.)