This month, former cowman and agri-marketing contractor Phil Christopher shares his views on the lack of financial rewards for farmers from an expanding export market for Brand Britain dairy products.
It is encouraging to know that two-year-matured UK Cheddar is selling for nearly 40/kg in some USA supermarkets, according to this magazines weekly sibling (Farmers Guardian 31 March p19, Vast US retail scene). From an AHDB-led export mission, FG reports how British cheese was seen as a sexy product to overseas buyers.
This echoes a point made by Lucy Randolph, AHDB exports manager, nearly two years ago during an export opportunities industry forum at UK Dairy Day 2021. At the forum, she said: Brand Britain is very well thought of in export markets.
So far, so good except for one tiny flaw, as I see it, which is the absence of a mechanism by which some export revenue reaches the dairy farmers reading this. The best metaphor I can offer is riding a bike with no chain; no matter how much exports help with pedalling, precious little reaches you at the back wheel. At Dairy Day 2021, I put this to the forum speakers.
The NFU Dairy Board chairman said his organisations new export strategy would link with milk contracts and that they were hoping for government support. Really? And which contracts would those be?
AHDBs Ms Randolph said that hopefully additional export demand for milk would feed through to farmers as better ex-farm prices. Sarah Appleby, from her familys admirable cheese-making farm in Shropshire, said they were lucky to own the Appleby brand, from which export sales certainly did yield a financial gain.
So I asked the panel whether hoping or hopefully was good enough. To Sarah, I suggested that being lucky had nothing to do with it. Instead, her grandparents-in-law, Lance and Lucy, had the vision and courage in the 1950s to start making cheese. Clearly, they were rather good at it and subsequent generations, including Sarah and husband Paul today, have continued their good work.
Between Applebys and the 40/kg Cheddar-maker Barbers, the common denominator is investment in, and ownership of, their brands. So when affluent USA customers buy their cheeses, Applebys or Barbers receive the lolly. Of course, costs of production, shipping, admin and export insurance have to be covered. But that is under direct control of those cheesemakers.
Returning to our Dairy Day panel, I also asked: What about the majority of milk producers who do not have any brand ownership as their bicycle chain? Collectively, the answers from NFU, AHDB and Promar experts can be summarised as blah, blah, blah. Only Sarah Appleby appeared to understand what I was getting at. It is all very well boosting dairy exports, but how do our farmers reap meaningful gains? Basking in the glow of Brand Britains good reputation does not butter much bread.
One final jibe goes to the panel chairman, who said: British milk is a fantastic product! The reality is that most ex-farm milk is tanker loads of an undifferentiated commodity. In contrast, a product sits on retail shelving in identity-differentiated, attractive, customer-friendly packaging.
With the UK having just joined the Trans Pacific Partnership free-trade club, it is a reasonable assumption that new export opportunities for high quality Brand Britain dairy products should arise. But, for a fair share of the financial returns, farmers need more skin in the game than just supplying the bulk raw material for other businesses to convert into products with brand names owned by the processor. How can this be done? That is up to you, individually and collectively, to follow role models Appleby's and Barbers quoted above. Is it just me, or have Clover or Country Life, Cathedral City or even Lymeswold, just popped into your head?
