On Friday, Dairy Crest announced that it will be cutting the price paid to farmers on its Davidstow contract.  The company, which completed its sale to processing giant Muller late last year, blamed “Challenging market conditions” for the cut.

From 1st March, there will be a reduction of  1.6ppl, bringing Davidstow prices down to 22.72ppl. 1st March marks the date on which Dairy Crest’s promised ‘price-floor’, which aimed to protect suppliers’ returns over the winter period, expires.

Ruth Askew, Head of Procurement at Dairy Crest, commented, “I fully appreciate this reduction will be disappointing news. Dairy Crest has worked hard over the course of this milk year to try to deliver price stability for our Davidstow farmers. We recently introduced a price floor through to the end of February. This helped to provide some certainty to farmers over the winter months.

“However, dairy markets are under extreme pressure and milk supply remains high. The performance of our cheese brands has enabled us consistently to pay a leading milk price for our Davidstow milk… We are not immune from market forces and must take responsible action to make sure our products are competitive.”