There is, they say, no such thing as a happy farmer. It’s certainly true of dairy farmers, grappling with plummeting milk and cream prices in an already low-margin sector. Yet dairy processors also are taking their share of the pain.
Dairy Crest said two weeks ago that its dairies business, accounting for 70 per cent of its revenue, would suffer a loss in the first half. It is closing a bottling plant in London and a creamery in Somerset as part of a long-term cost-cutting programme and has had to drop the price it pays to farmers three times since July. It will cut it again in November.
Mark Allen, its chief executive, said the dairy commodities market had been “extremely volatile”, with cream and