Buy local to support farmers: TFGA Dairy Council

Gold Logie winner Waleed Aly has weighed into the issue of dropping global milk prices with a widely shared video that aired on The Project on Tuesday night and afterwards shared on social media. The video that showed a visual representation of the drop in global dairy price and the impact it will have on the country’s dairy industry was presented in a way that people would understand, Mr Lester said.

“It’s very heartening that people are becoming engaged with the issue, I don’t think that people realised they could help,” he said.

Coles supermarkets announced on Tuesday it would be creating a new home-brand milk to support the industry amid the fallen prices. The new brand will deliver an extra 20c per litre of milk into an independent dairy industry fund that would provide direct support to farmers. Coles will also contribute $1 million to help establish a sustainable dairy industry fund to administer the initiative.

Coles managing director John Durkan said he wanted to have this initiative up and running as soon as possible to put additional dollars into Tasmanian dairy farmers' pockets.

“Over the past 10 years we’ve seen milk production in the Tasmanian dairy industry continue to grow with Tasmania now producing more than 9 per cent of the nation’s milk. It’s important we have a vibrant dairy farming sector and we can only have that if we work together to ensure the long term health of the industry," Mr Durkan said.

Mr Lester was critical of the move by Coles, saying it was a good marketing strategy but said it essentially compounded the problem.

“What we’d like to see, if Coles really want to help, is to scrap home brand milk and put up the price of branded milk,” he said.

Mr Lester said what Coles was doing was developing another dollar milk brand with 20c added price for the industry fund, a general consumer would think they were assisting farmers but it would in effect be diverting consumer efforts from branded products back to Coles.

Local brands of milk include Betta and Pura as well as independent brands such as Ashgrove and Real Milk.

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