Where is your milk produced?

Last week, the National Dairy Council (NDC) ran an advertisement (pictured) in this publication with cows in the shape of a question mark on a green field. The question was then spelled out underneath the image – “Why are Centra, SuperValu and Tesco so big on locally sourced and packaged milk with the NDC trademark?”

Three of the big players in the Irish supermarket scene, with over 50% market share between them, Dunnes Stores, Aldi and Lidl were missing, so I was asked a number of times over the weekend why they were not listed in the advert by the NDC.

The answer to the question lies with where the supermarkets source milk that they sell as “own brand” or private-label. Own-brand milk is now the biggest proportion of milk sold in supermarkets as the retailers use the lower price on own-brand milk to entice consumers to use milk as a loss leader.

Anyway, to answer the question seeing is believing, so I headed to two towns in north Tipperary and purchased eight cartons of milk from a variety of supermarkets (Table 1).

Missing supermarkets

Dunnes Stores has a contract for its fresh milk supply and, at the moment, it is sourcing its milk from Convoy Dairies, based in Donegal. Convoy sources a lot of its milk in Northern Ireland; hence, it does not carry the Irish NDC trademark.

Lidl is sourcing a good proportion of its milk from Strathroy Dairies in Omagh, Co Tyrone, so again Strathroy is not a member of the NDC and does not carry the NDC trademark. In the Aldi store I visited, the milk was carrying an NDC trademark so that means at least some of the Aldi fresh milk supply is contracted to Arrabawn and, hence, the milk purchased did carry the NDC trademark.

In all three stores, Lidl, Aldi and Dunnes Stores, I was bombarded with “Irish cows’ milk” and Irish flags, etc, in a bid to convince the consumer that the milk was locally sourced and locally farmed.

As you can see from Table 1, this of course is not always the case as a large proportion of the milk is not sourced in the Republic.

NDC uses the trademark to show audited proof of locally sourced, fresh, locally farmed and locally packaged milk. The NDC then plays on this to tell consumers to show support for local Irish communities, jobs and fresh produce and buy milk with only the NDC trademark.

Supermarkets now sell 75% of national milk sales

You can see in Table 1 what exactly is happening with price. The branded products – Arrabawn, Avonmore, etc – are retailing at a higher price compared with the own-brand milk that is sometimes coming from the same milk processor.

If the consumer can get the exact same product at a lower price its easy see why branded products are declining year on year.

Supermarkets now sell 75% of national milk sales.

After feedback on plastic usage and subsequent environmental benefits we weighed each empty two-litre carton (see last column in Table 1).

Some milk suppliers were claiming significant differences in plastic usage compared to competitors. We will return to this in more detail.

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