Arla Foods amba board director, and farmer owner, Arthur Fearnall, said: “Pricing for all EU dairy commodities especially cheese has continued to increase significantly in September based on low availability. The UK Organic market has not yet returned to pre-covid levels, especially in foodservice. The increase in our conventional farmgate milk price will be welcomed by our farmer owners who are experiencing significant inflationary costs on farm at the moment.”

Graham Wilkinson, Group Senior Agriculture Director at Arla Foods, commented; “We are keenly aware that cost inflation is hitting all our farmers now in a way we haven’t seen in many years. Whilst we are pleased to be able to announce an increase in our conventional farmgate price for next month, we can see that this will simply not be enough to cover the increase in longer-term costs that so many farms are now facing. It could pose a risk to our food supply and production in the UK unless the added costs are recovered in the market, and naturally this has our full focus in the weeks and months ahead.”