The fund, which opens later this month, is part of the Farming Investment Fund and offers grants for specific items of equipment to increase productivity, boost environmental sustainability and improve animal health and welfare. It is split into two themes- Productivity and Slurry (open later this month) and Animal Health and Welfare (available in March) and will offer grants of between £1,000 and £25,000.

Grants Guidance  

Defra has also provided guidance ahead of the grants opening to help farmers prepare ahead. This can be viewed at  gov.uk/guidance/farming-investment-fund.

Each item listed has a score assigned to it based on Defra’s assessment of how well it meets the scheme’s objectives. If the scheme is oversubscribed, Defra will allocate funding to those items with the highest score first. In the first round, those applying for a grant received approximately 44% of the total cost. The fund proved very popular, and was oversubscribed. Defra encourages anyone who was unsuccessful in the first round to apply again.

How to Apply  

There are two separate ‘portals’ to apply for each grant: Productivity and Slurry and Animal Health and Welfare.

When the application window opens, applicants can visit the online portal and answer questions about the grants they are applying for. The minimum grant is £1,000 per portal, so the minimum investment for those wishing to apply across both portals remains as it did in the first round. If successful, applicants can then buy the item. They can then claim the reimbursement using their receipt.

Expanding the list of items  

Additional items have been added to the list following a review of the first round of funding with farmers, vets, academics and industry groups.

As a result, Defra has added:

• 19 items to aid productivity
• Two items to help with better slurry management
• 66 items to support animal health and welfare

The grants to co-fund investment in equipment, technology and infrastructure that improve animal health and welfare are part of the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway. Defra will publish more information on this very soon.

Standard costs across all items have also been reviewed and grant rates adjusted accordingly.

The list of items for both grants can be found here:

Productivity and Slurry Grant

Animal Health and Welfare Grant

For more information, visit: defrafarming.blog.gov.uk

The post List of eligible equipment and guidance on Farming Equipment and Technology Fund released appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

As more energy, sports and performance drinks saturate the market, the beneficial properties of milk are being underlined not only by health experts, but by sport scientists too.

New research published last month in the British Journal of Nutrition shows that milk consumed as a post-exercise recovery rehydrates the body more effectively than water or traditional sports drinks. In addition to protein, milk contains a high number of electrolytes, including sodium and potassium, which are lost from the body when sweating, which is why it’s thought to be beneficial for hydration.

To raise awareness of the benefits of milk as a sports drink, leading school milk supplier Cool Milk has a launched a #FuelledByMilk campaign, spearheaded by World Superbike rider and reigning British Superbike champion Josh Brookes.

“I’ve suffered a few broken bones during my years of racing. I drank more milk to get the extra calcium and protein to aid my recovery and I often returned to the track ahead of the expected recovery time,” explains Brookes.

Milk actually includes two types of protein: casein, which makes up 80% of the total protein content, and whey, which accounts for the remaining 20%. Both are recognised as high-quality, muscle building proteins and research has shown milk can also help to repair exercise induced muscle damage.

In a study by the Department of Sport Sciences at Northumbria University, researchers found that drinking milk post exercise can help alleviate or slow down muscle damage and help muscle performance.

Conversely, the subjects that consumed milk before exercise were said to have less noticeable results, except for a reduced risk of building up damaged tissue.

Brookes adds, “As good as some of the protein drink options are, I find milk much better. If you have a protein drink after a workout and it has, say, twice the amount of protein you need, then most of that is going to waste. The body can only absorb so much and so I find milk is perfect for bringing your energy levels back up and making you feel like you are back to your best.”

The post Milk enters the sports drink category appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

In the US, The Milk Processor Education Program, or MilkPEP, runs very successful campaigns, funded by ongoing processor contributions. Got milk? has been a long-running campaign, and has been recently joined by Built with chocolate milk, and milk life, in both English and Spanish versions, to focus on the country’s growing Hispanic communities.

Here in the UK, the Make Mine Milk campaign (www.makeminemilk.co.uk) successfully ran for several years until 2014. Unfortunately, this is not likely to be resurrected, especially as the original was paid for with European Union funds. I wonder if we can get a collection up among the Brexiteers to perhaps pay for further dairy promotions?

Some say that branded milk does the job perfectly fine, whether it’s Arla’s Cravendale cats kidnapping milkmen (“Not on our watch, pussies!”) or Müller’s bear jigging around an office (“Word to your Müller”). I love these ads.

However, I think that overall industry promotion also helps. The government could step up a bit and instead of giving lip service to our industry, could actually assist in promoting it. In the US, the US Department of Agriculture aids and abets the dairy industry in its marketing pursuits with MilkPEP.

This industry has been battered by two years of low prices for dairy milk, so it may be hard to come up with the ready cash for such an enterprise, but maybe now is the time to see what else we can do on the marketing front. Smaller companies use social media to great effect at low cost, and maybe it’s time for the British dairy industry to think big by thinking small.

Ideas on a tweet, please. @dairyindustries

The post The missing milk ads appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

The campaign is backed by Cool Milk – a UK-based school milk supplier delivering free and subsidised school milk to children in pre-schools, nurseries and primary schools.

Recent studies show that milk is a good way to hydrate quickly after exerting energy. A study from the University of Stirling, recently featured on BBC 1, said that those who drank milk in a trial were hydrated for around four hours. The University was setting out to create a ‘beverage hydration index’ which aims to inform people of which drinks are best to keep them hydrated the longest.

“I’ve always drank milk, from being a child. A lot of the time, athletes who endorse a drink or product might not be a huge fan of what they have written across their clothing or branding, but I actually love milk, I find it refreshing,” explains Brookes.

“When I was at school we learned about calcium and strong bones. I broke my leg at six years old and wanted to get better as soon as possible. I started drinking a lot of milk to aid my recovery and I’ve never really stopped. I’ve not had so many injuries as an adult so maybe my bones have become stronger from all the years of drinking milk.”

The post Superbike star fuelled by Cool Milk appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

Members of the Alliance currently include the Dairy Crest, Dairy UK, Creamlines, the National Day Nurseries Association, and Cool Milk.

Jon Thornes MBE, interim chairman of the School and Nursery Milk Alliance, says: “We as a country are facing unprecedented problems of obesity and public health, so it is more important than ever that our children are encouraged to adopt good habits and live healthy lives.

“Drinking milk while in school or nursery is an important part of good nutrition and, along with drinking water and eating fruit, milk is an essential part of a child’s school day. It can also provide valuable social benefits and opportunities for children to learn and develop social skills. Learning these skills and the value of good eating habits and nutrition at an early age is crucial to the development of any child and can help enormously in ensuring their good health later in life.”

Children under the age of five are currently entitled to free milk in the UK, while milk for children older than five is partially subsidised.

For further information please visit www.snma.org.uk

The post Alliance launched for school milk in UK appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

Thorne has put up cash to save the 88 jobs at the dairy and Rock Farm now will be known under the name of UK Dairy Sales. Cool Milk will be using the facility to pack its milk, and some of the vehicles for school milk deliveries. Thorne is hoping to buy the lease for the site and the equipment as well.

There are no plans to usurp the Gregory family, which has run the dairy throughout its history. “They are very much back in control now, and it’s about helping the family move forward,” Thorne notes. He will be a majority shareholder.

Rock Farm has an annual turnover of around £17 million (€20.3m) and can process up to 150,000 litres of milk per day. It sells to a diverse customer base across northern England.

The post Rock Farm Dairy wins reprieve in UK appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

The post Study says organic milk more uniform than other types appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

“The intention was to bring together players in the local dairy value chain by sharing expertise and resources so as to increase the quantity and quality of milk processed through the cooling plants established by EADD. This is expected to bring sustainability in the sector and ensure milk availability all year round,” Tetra Pak project manager Walter Ogonje says.

The Metkei Dairy Hub will be able to handle approximately 15,000 litres of milk per day. This milk will be collected by New KCC and packed in long life packages at the Nyahururu satellite cooling plant, with a capacity of 5,000kg.

EADD will provide technical support to ascertain longevity of the project while undertaking studies to improve production and sustainability in the dry season. Tetra Pak will cover the consultancy costs for the value chain study on milk availability, collection patterns and practices including proposing strategies and resource requirements. Tetra Pak will also equip the farmers with food grade containers for transporting and packaging of milk to satellite collection centres and the cooling plant.
The Metkei dairy hub is the second initiative undertaken by Tetra Pak, EADD and the New KCC to improve milk production in the country. The pilot project launched at Kokiche in Sotik town earlier in 2010 involves 30,000 dairy farmers and has a potential production capacity of 112,500 litres per day.

The post Kenyan dairy hub opens with Tetra Pak help appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

The post Nestlé invests in Sri Lanka appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

The Sherborne based company managed the process engineering from start to finish. The completely automated system comprises equipment for producing mozzarella, ice cream and pasteurised milk with a fully integrated single channel Cleaning-In-Place and hot water system completing the package.
This new range of equipment has enabled Laverstoke Park to fulfil its need for better processes with greater control, increased throughput, flexibility and product security.
The mozzarella manufacturing plant includes two 1,000 litre tip tanks for making curd, a moulding machine, cheese cooling and brining tables, draining tables and a rotary machine for filing and packing balls of mozzarella into pots with brine.
A new 1,000 litre per hour pasteuriser, two 2,000 litre storage tanks and the new carton machine, which can fill up to 1,500 Tetra Rex cartons an hour, have boosted milk capacity dramatically for the Hampshire farm. The Hoyer ice cream whipper freezer and cone/pot filling machine complete the processing plant.
By using Tetra Rex cartons, Tetra Pak CPS has helped Laverstoke Park Farm tick the box for environmentally aware consumers. These lightweight cartons are made from natural, renewable resource-wood and are low carbon. They also protect products from harmful light.

The post Tetra Pak provide right formula for Laverstoke Park Farm appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

Geoff Walker, CEO of PDDC, notes that prior to it, the dairy sector had around 1,500 cooling tanks in operation. The 1,000 tanks provided through the program are significant addition to the infrastructure of the sector.
Sarfraz Ahmad, programme manager of PDDC, states that the PDDC would play its part in the process of upgrading the quality of the milk in Pakistan. The company calculates that around 500,000 litres of milk per day is channelled through the cooling tanks established under the program.

The post Cooling tanks in Pakistan appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

The Swiss group enjoyed sales of CHF 78.7bn (€47 bn).

In its Milk Products and Ice Cream business unit, nine month sales totalled CHF 15.7 billion (€9.4 bn), up 1.8% in terms of real internal growth and 6.5% in organic growth terms. This category saw the strongest price increases to mitigate input cost pressures, and its performance was driven by higher value segments and innovation. Nido, the world leader in children’s milk powder, experienced double-digit organic growth, with products containing added probiotics and what Nestle calls “branded active benefits”. Ice cream grew strongly in Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe, thanks to higher impulse sales and strong innovation, including products with an improved nutritional profile, whereas higher prices in North America and a cool summer in Western Europe softened sales volumes there.

Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chairman and CEO of Nestle, says‚ “The Group’s strong organic growth continued over the third quarter, reflecting good performances across most product categories. In spite of increasing input cost pressures, I remain confident that Nestle will achieve above-target organic growth and a sustainable margin improvement for 2007 as a whole, once again demonstrating the strength of the Nestle model.”

Brabeck-Letmathe also announced the establishment of Nestle Professional, a new globally-managed business unit dedicated to the out-of-home food and beverage market. The unit replaces Nestle’s FoodService Strategic Business Division.

“Finally,” said Brabeck-Letmathe, “the appointment of Paul Polman as new head of Zone Americas and Jim Singh as new CFO, together with the other changes to the Executive Board, creates a strong management team under the leadership of the newly designated CEO, Paul Bulcke, which will extend and broaden the successful developments achieved over the past years.”

The post Nestlé stays on track appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

The acquisition includes a dairy plant with a processing and packaging capacity of 50,000 litres per day, a chilling plant with a capacity of 12,000 litres per day, and seven bulk coolers having an aggregate capacity of 23,000 litres per day.
Heritage Foods is one of the largest milk and milk products producing private sector enterprises in South India.

The post Indian Heritage Foods buys Vikram Dairy appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

From its HQ in Swiss Vevey, the world’s largest food group announced that it is to have a 40% share in the new organisation with the rest controlled by the French-based Lactalis which processes some 7,000 million litres milk in 78 plants worldwide. The new organisation will market established dairy products from both concerns and will take advantage of existing distribution networks in supplying the whole of Europe. At the same time Nestle indicated that new products would be developed by both concerns under the partnership banner, with more emphasis on functional or probiotic dairy foods.

Commenting on the plans, Nestle president Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said: “Our commercial cooperation with this successful French enterprise will mean a new strong European competitor in the market for yogurts and cooled desserts.”

The post Nestlé and Lactalis create new yogurt giant appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

This coincides with the recent The White Stuff milk moustache campaign launched in the country, which featured celebrities such as Atomic Kitten and Nell McAndrew sporting milk moustaches.

The research found that 62% of children now believe that drinking milk can be cool, and that 71% of kids now say that milk is a popular drink among their peers. That is an increase of nearly 20% from last autumn, when the campaign was launched.

“Whilst the health benefits of milk are very important, these can be difficult to convey to young children or teens who are more interested in what their friends are doing or what the latest celebrity news is,” said Sandy Wilkie, chairman of the Scottish Dairy Marketing Company.

The post Milk looking cool thanks to celebrities appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

Carlisle designed and built a milk chilling and routing system and storage tanks at its Sherborne headquarters, before transporting it to Aberdeenshire where it cools the milk yield of 500 Jersey cows.

The machine updates Mackie’s traditional byre and old mill system, so now it has a state of the art chilling system with piping, which includes cleaning in place. Two separate chilling systems have their own storage tanks, allowing one to be cleaned while the other continues.

The post Top ice cream maker installs Carlisle equipment appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

The drink is aimed at ‘tweenage’ ten to13 year-old consumers, a market particularly difficult to crack, according to Datamonitor. The company said that disappointing sales performance is causing retailers to review the product, which suggests that Britvic may be relying too heavily on out-dated notions of how to effectively target ten to 13 year olds.

Current marketing tactics have tried to make the product appear cool and fun, two vital propositions of any product for this market. The approach includes a Freekee Soda website, mainstream TV advertising and sampling campaigns.

The UK drink has been backed by a

The post Britvic’s dairy drink failing appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

The system involves one cylindrical tank, which acts as a cooling chamber for milk within a tank of frozen water allowing the milk to be cooled without using a pumping system.

The energy produced during the conversion from ice to water is used to store solar energy when the sun’s irradiation is high, and that energy can be used for the second milking at night.

The system can store milk for 60 hours at 80% of its capacity. According to the university, the results of the cooling efficiency of the system are similar to those reached by the usual systems, which use electrochemical batteries to store energy.

The post Sun’s rays cool milk appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

The company saw turnover down from E219.9 million in 2000 to E217.8 million in 2001.

In a statement, the company said that the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Northern Ireland and the Cooley Peninsula made collecting and processing milk difficult.

Costs of collecting milk soared, and processing operations were checked stringently by the Department of Agriculture, further adding to costs.

However, Lakeland said that it saw a good first half to the year and that its balance sheet remained strong. It added that its recent acquisitions, including the Bailieboro processing plant from Kerry Group and a plant at Omagh from Nestle, would help it towards a strong 2002.

The post Lakeland reports disappointing 2001 appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

All four companies saw key dairy brands help to deliver strong performances. French group Danone posted particularly good results, with sales for its fresh dairy products division up 6.7% on the first quarter of 2001.

Overall Danone’s like for like sales growth was 4.1%, with the beverage division up 2.7% and the company’s biscuit and cereal business up 0.9%.

In a statement, the company said that following the deconsolidation of its Italian cheese and ham subsidiary Galbani at the end of April, organic sales growth would reach a minimum of 5.2%.
Danone’s North American dairy business saw 9% sales growth. However, an 8.8% drop in sales for its North American water business balanced this.

Unilever’s North American business was also supported by dairy sales. The company said that its 2% rise in food group sales in North America was driven by growth in spreads and its Ben and Jerry’s and Breyers ice cream brands.

Spreads gave Unilever a good return in other areas, with sales up 5% on the first quarter of 2001 in Europe and solid growth reported in South Africa. Overall turnover for Unilever’s food business for the first quarter was down 3% on the same period last year due to disposals.

Although Kraft said that its dairy business was performing well, it noted that its cheese sales in Europe dropped in the first quarter of 2002 due to increased price competition.

In its North American business, Kraft said that cheese sales were up on the first quarter of 2001, driven by its Kraft natural cheese and Velveeta processed cheese brands. The company also said that its Cool Whip dairy product had seen sales grow due to strong merchandising.

Overall, Kraft Foods saw a net profit of $802 million (E887 million) in the first quarter of 2002, up 19.7% on the same period last year.

Nestle remained upbeat about its results for the first quarter. The company said that its milk and nutrition businesses saw sales in the first quarter of 2002 up 5.6% on the same period last year.

For the period, Nestle’s milk and nutrition business saw sales of E3.73 billion. In a statement, the company said that real internal growth for the department was 2.4%. The company added that growth was spread evenly across operating countries.”

The post Going is good for the global dairy giants appeared first on Dairy Industries International.