New allegations of animal abuse won’t help a dairy sector already on the brink

The dairy sector isn’t normally synonymous with stability. Just look at the myriad crises it has seen (and continues to face) over profitability concerns during the past decade.

It’s faced buffeting from declining consumption at various points, coupled with growing competition from plant-based dairy alternatives – which (as we’ve seen in recent ads from the likes of Oatly and Alpro) are becoming increasingly vocal in their opposition to the sector.

But despite these challenges, locked-down shoppers very much embraced their love for all things dairy during the pandemic.

According to AHDB analysis of Kantar data published last week, supermarket dairy sales across all categories in 2021 remained “significantly elevated” versus pre-pandemic levels.

Total dairy value sales were up 11.3% compared to 2019, with volumes up 6.3%. Standout performers included cheese, which saw volumes climb 13.2%, while butter volumes were up 16.5% and milk volumes were 5.8% higher than they were in 2019.

“As a staple product, dairy will continue to do well in 2022, despite growth slowing last year as restrictions were eased,” predicted AHDB senior retail insight manager Kim Heath, who added that 77% of consumers saw dairy as “a vital part of their everyday food”, with 99.5% of UK households shopping for dairy products every month in 2021.

Such a performance should be heartening for a sector that is again feeling the pinch financially, with soaring on-farm costs threatening the futures of many dairy farmers.

So against this background, the shocking revelations uncovered by the BBC’s Panorama on Monday night – which saw workers on a dairy farm in west Wales engaged in a series of alleged animal welfare breaches – were disappointing to say the least.

Undercover filming by welfare campaigners Animal Equality revealed what appeared to be a litany of ill treatment on the farm, with a number of cows shown limping badly and suffering from ulcers and foot problems.

Things then took a “darker turn” in the documentary when workers were shown inflicting violence on the helpless animals. Deeply troubling examples of such violence included a cow being struck by a shovel, a fallen cow being kicked and another being hauled into the air using a hoist.

Understandably, Red Tractor was quick to suspend the farm – which told Panorama “if workers had abused cows, a disciplinary process would begin immediately”.

Processor Freshways was equally “shocked” by the exposé and said it was “working around the clock with Red Tractor to ensure these allegations are fully investigated”.

There was also an understandable backlash from disgusted consumers on social media. Industry body Dairy UK added to those voices of condemnation this week, telling The Grocer such behaviour was “totally unacceptable under any circumstances”.

That’s obviously a given, but the footage, and the wider Panorama investigation into conditions throughout the dairy supply chain, has also resurfaced long-standing questions over whether we should be paying more for our milk and other dairy produce.

In response to soaring on-farm inflation, average farmgate prices are now at their highest-ever levels, according to AHDB data – with its UK ‘All Milk’ price averaging 34.12p per litre at the end of December, which is almost 19% higher than it was in February 2020.

But as Panorama pointed out, this is a bit of a historical anomaly, with prices largely bouncing around the mid-teens to the mid-20p mark for much of the past 10 years – levels widely acknowledged across the dairy industry as unsustainable and way below the cost of production.

At the same time, retail prices – particularly for liquid milk – have largely remained static in recent years, prompting mounting warnings it is no longer viable to produce for the supermarket sector.

Would higher prices necessarily mean we wouldn’t see shocking scenes as depicted by the Panorama investigation? We may never know.

But as the film-makers suggested, the relentless drive for value across the supply chain appears to have also driven down standards on this particular farm – with one expert bemoaning how farm staff appeared to care only about ensuring the animals produced milk, whatever the cost to their welfare.

This all comes as new consumer research published this week by animal protection charity Open Cages showed almost 80% of British people “opposed factory farming practices which cause animals to experience pain or suffering as a means of producing affordable food”.

“Behind the scenes, there’s a common attitude of seeing consumers as too cheap to support a move to higher standards,” says Open Cages CEO Connor Jackson.

“This poll suggests the vast majority of British consumers aren’t interested in such a trade-off: they don’t want cruelty to be the price. It blows this outdated attitude out of the water.”

With that in mind, the danger for the dairy sector now is that the breaches shown by Panorama and those of a similar ilk in recent years could ultimately impact on dairy’s recent successes at the till.

As Dairy UK says, any farm behaving in the way depicted on the Panorama episode “does a massive disservice to the large majority of dairy farmers who care for their cows and are committed to world-leading animal welfare standards”.

But with the sector now under a fresh round of scrutiny, the job of those farmers and a wider sector fighting to keep dairy relevant has just become that much harder.