Scotland's dairy products are now a part of a "futures" market - now that two EU dairy giants control a huge share of the Scottish (and UK) market between them - where "milk futures" and "hedging" - language and methods used by bankers and stock markets are taking over our dairy production market in the UK - with farmers, consumers and workers all being abused for foreign company gain.
Is this part of the reason why, today, the Guardian warns after Brexit we may find ourselves short of dairy products?
"Everyday dairy products such as butter, yoghurt and cheese could become luxury items in Britain after Brexit, with price rises being caused by the slightest delay in the journey from farm to table, a report by the London School of Economics finds."
The "research" was commissioned by Arla Foods, the company that owns Lurpak, Anchor and Arla brands, where the UK managing director states
"“Our dependence on imported dairy products means that disruption to the supply chain will have a big impact. Most likely we would see shortages of products and a sharp rise in prices, turning everyday staples like butter, yoghurts, cheese and infant formula, into occasional luxuries. Speciality cheeses, where there are currently limited options for production, may become very scarce.”"
But for Scotland and the rest of the UK - this and another story, when combined - begs the question - was all this planned way back in 1994 by the Tory Government for companies like Muller and Arla - as the Tory party set up a secret brexit club in 1993 (when UKIP was formed too) - using taxpayers money to fund their operations to co-ordinate with people in other EU countries on Brexit 30 years before they discussed it with us - insider trading.
The start of the Tory plot - Deregulation of the raw milk industry
The Tory government, backed by Lord Strathclyde, abolished the Scottish Milk Marketing Board (SMMB) in 1994 - despite it being said to be
"in its time an efficient and often admired system"
This happened the year after the Tories set up their secret Brexit club and formed Scottish Pride to take over the milk processing activities as they deregulated the raw milk industry so farmers no longer had a buyer of last resort to give a guaranteed price for milk which the Tory Party knew would then allow foreign corporations to gradually take over control of UK operations.
Workers in dairies lost their job soon after, lambasting the Tory government for this decision.
Allegations of Price Fixing proven then not proven by OFT
Just six years later, in 2000 the OFT had to investigation allegations of price fixing by dairies in Scotland - an investigation where the OFT initially upheld the complaint only to re-open the inquiry and then claim in 2008 there was insufficient evidence.
Muller - Mergers, Takeovers, Shutdowns and Job Losses
Wiseman's became one of the biggest dairies in the UK after they bought over so many different diary production companies across the UK they were referred to the competition authority in 2005, with fears this would push milk prices up due to lack of competition.
Would we have allowed a foreign company like Germany's Muller to do this first?
Muller waited, and let the Wiseman's do the takeovers to get a huge portion of the market and then in 2012 Germany's Muller bought out the Wiseman brothers' entire UK operations, with the Scottish family reported to have made £100m on the deal.
At the time it was reported in the Guardian
"Robert Wiseman will be replaced as chairman by Müller's chief executive, Heiner Kamps, but will stay on as a director, and the rest of the management is also staying on."...
"This will create significant opportunities, which will benefit suppliers, customers, consumers and employees.""
Muller and the Wiseman's gave reassurances (just like Kraft when they took over Cadbury) claiming
"that it will not make any changes to the Scottish company's locations or conditions of employment."
But the reassurances proved to be worthless as the one's Kraft gave when they took over Cadbury, as Muller ruthlessly started shutting down Scotland's milk process plant operations.
In July 2013 Muller confirmed they were closing the Keith and Whitburn depots and laying off 58 workers before the end of the year, but creating 13 jobs in Aberdeen and 68 jobs in Cambuslang.
Then in June 2014, Muller shut the former Wiseman depot in Cornwall with the loss of 58 jobs.
Germany's Muller waited two years to then announce all those extra jobs which they gave to Aberdeen, when they shut the two Scottish plants previously, would be lost as in April 2014 as they were now also shutting the Aberdeen and East Kilbride dairy processing plants with the loss of another 229 jobs.
Muller then took advantage of the announcement to extorted local north east farmers - telling the 43 farms affected they will have to either pay the German company an extra 1.75p per litre to transport their milk to the Bellshill plant (an absolute fortune more) or get other buyers for their milk when their contract expired.
Muller tried to soften the blow with the announcement "The Muller Milk and Ingredients subsidiary is investing £15m over three years at its Bellshill dairy in Lanarkshire, aiming to expand its range of products."
Dairy farmers give up and sell their herd due to extortion
As a result of the closure of the Muller plant in Aberdeen, in November 2017 one of the farmers affected by the closure decided to stop dairy farming all together - and started selling off their dairy herd - the family have been dairy farmers since 1942.
The Scotsman quotes the family saying
"The family’s decision for a change in farming policy is due to the closure of Muller’s Aberdeen milk plant and the company’s enforcement of a “crippling” haulage charge of 1.75p litre to all non-aligned producers in the north-east to have their milk taken south for processing.
The Mair family has calculated that this additional charge costs their farm business around £65,000 annually."
EU and UK approve merger of Muller and Dairy Crest
In March 2015, Muller was referred to the EU competition authorities as this giant was now looking to take over another dairy giant - Dairy Crest.
The piecemeal conquest plan to gradually get one company to take over others, and then merge with one which has done the same - so giant corporations monopolise the supply chain and then create shortages by shutting plants down to maximise their prices at the expense of workers and customers and suppliers - at the expense of everyone in the UK - with profits going outside the UK too.
Dairy Crest said that, “following constructive talks with the European Commission”, the deal had now been referred back to the UK to make it easy for the deal to be rubber stamped by the UK CMA in October 2015 for the German company.
This would then leave three main companies in control of most of the diary products market in the UK
Glasgow based First Milk which is 100% owned by dairy farmers across the UK
Arla Foods, the fourth largest dairy company in the world, formed when the Swedish dairy cooperative Arla and the Danish dairy company MD Foods merged on 17 April 2000 (after they became large by first merging dairies in their own countries) and
Germany's Muller which has a turnover of 6 billion euros with 27,000 employees worldwide.
Exports, more closures and more farmers complaint's
Arla supplies 50,000 shops in the Middle East, so you can understand why Britain can expect shortages when our food resources are being exported for a Denmark based company's profits.
Arla announced just weeks ago it was shutting down a creamery in Denbighshire with the loss of 97 jobs as it cuts 154 posts around the UK and 195 across Europe - with the smaller packing operations in Malpas, Cheshire, and Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway also being closed too.
In Scotland, family company Grahams is expanding, but they too cut prices to farmers which caused great anger in 2015.
Graham's were reported to be paying some farmers just 7ppl for their milk in July 2015 when it was revealed
"Graham’s has now announced a 1.5p cut to its A price bringing it to 23.75p a litre and a 7p a litre cut to its B price making it 7p a litre. The new prices will come into effect on August 1".
Scottish firm Grahams has already invested £1.5m in a logistics facility in the North East, which opened in September 2017.
Just four weeks ago an SNP Minister threw out the Graham's family dairy planning appeal after two years - the plan was to build 600 homes on green belt land and also build in a £40million state of the art milk processing plant nearby - this despite warnings Scotland and the UK could face shortages of dairy products because of Brexit.
In March 2017 German company Muller hit farmers in East Anglia when they announced they were also shutting a dairy processing depot they bought from Dairy Crest in their area, with the loss of 400 jobs.
In November 2017 Grahams announced they were in talks with two Spanish supermarkets to export its "rapidly growing protein snack" which is being trialled in several markets in Europe and the Middle East, alongside Graham’s yoghurts and Quark, a soft cheese. Stockists include two of the biggest retailers in the Gulf States – Spinneys and LuLu.
The Herald report also reveals Graham’s also exports to markets such as Belgium, Denmark and Ireland,
In October 2017 Scottish farmers vented their frustration and anger saying anything less than 30ppl (pence per litre) for milk is an insult as they stated in the Scottish Farmer "PENNY pinching by milk buyers and retailers is short-changing Scotland’s dairy farmers,
Muller starts "futures market" and "hedging" for Scotland's Milk
Then in December 2017 it was reported Muller, the main milk buyer in the north and north east of Scotland, has slashed the price it will pay to farmers - offering 5% less for the milk from January 2018, dropping the price by 1.5p per litre - this after we found out the extra haulage charges Muller charge North East farmers, costing one farmer £65,000 a year - now we understand why a North East farmer is pulling out of dairy farming and selling off their herd.
Now as part of the bully boy tactics telling North East farmers we are paying you less there was a very interesting piece of information from the Courier's Muller story as they they blamed this price cut on
a 25% decline in the UK value of "commodity cream and butter" since September 2017, with the company's agriculture director, Rob Hutchinson stating the company's "portfolio of added-value dairy products was shielding farmers from the volatility of global dairy commodity markets.
NFU Scotland vice-president Gary Mitchell lambasted the company as the Courier report goes on to say he
"criticised the company’s kneejerk reaction to softening commodity prices said Muller had jumped at the opportunity to slash the price it pays to producers to shore up its own profits.
“Yet, when cream prices surged, it took Muller many months to return an extra 1.5p per litre to their suppliers,” he said.
“Despite watching all dairy farmers in 2016 endure the lowest milk prices for a generation, Muller and others were slow to lift prices when the markets rose, arguing that their cautious approach was to avoid over production. Now, Muller has dropped the price like a stone at the first opportunity.”"
But - a little more research reveals Germany's Muller is changing Scotland's milk production and supply into a commodities market - with new contracts for farmers involving trading milk on Muller's new "futures" platform with talk of hedging - the language of bankers.
The story appeared in the Scottish Farmer in August 2017 where the report states
"Dairy industry analyst Ian Potter explained: “At first sight the new contract sounds complicated but in reality it’s fairly straightforward – on the third Wednesday of each month, Muller Direct suppliers will be able to log in and view a paid price to them for each of the 12 months based on a www.milkprices.com standard litre".
And while NFU's Scotland’s milk policy manager George Jamieson welcomed Muller's
"voluntary option utilising futures platforms"
her went on to explain it's not really so easy as
“This merits consideration and I encourage Muller producers to engage with their elected farmer representatives to help them fully understand the offer and the option to use hedging as part of a risk management process to reduce the impact of volatile milk prices.”
Why is all this so wrong and what can be done to secure affordable diary product supplies for UK farmers and consumers
This reminds me of the film Trading Places where orange futures get traded on the stock market - is that exactly what Muller is setting up - a stock market scam where our milk prices will be at the mercy of a German stock market.
Especially now Germany's Muller (and Denmark's Arla) have used their power over the dairy market across the UK to shut down Scottish and other UK dairy production operations , extort farmers and now force farmers onto an online trading platform - to allow Muller to manipulate Scottish and UK milk prices (from Germany?) and most like other dairy products too.
Now we start to understand Muller's and Alra's Brexit plan - so they can extort the people of Scotland - exactly why no foreign company should control any food commodity or market in Scotland or the UK - because it means we are all being held to ransom.
With Grahams no better in its treatment of Scottish farmers - this proves the Scottish government should restore regulation of the raw milk market, if the UK government won't, to ensure Scotland's dairy farmers get a fair deal to survive - otherwise, like the family in the North East we will find ourselves with no dairy farmers and Scotland having to import milk and other dairy products.
And we all must demand the Scottish government re-open public owned local dairy production plants across Scotland once again - to restore the efficient public market that operated across Scotland before the private "market" took over and ensure supplies to the people of Scotland, before anything is exported to Europe and the Middle East, at prices Scottish consumers can afford.
And we must ask, has the Tory party's ERG party within a party, set up in 1993, been using taxpayers money in a plot with people across Europe, to co-ordinate this takeover of British markets for their gain using deregulation of everything - it would appear so.