Organic milk groups have launched a tongue-in-cheek internet campaign based on Eastern spirituality to boost long-term sales of organic milk as new figures reveal its surge in popularity is tailing off.

The Love-om campaign, which will be launched next month, will "fuse Eastern practices with the organic philosophy to communicate the wellbeing associated with organic milk".

Created by the Federation of Organic Milk Groups, the campaign will film and photograph farmers and tanker drivers performing tai chi and meditation, posting the images on a website. Consumers will be able to log on each day and learn a different oriental activity.

Organisers hope that consumers will be inspired to visit the site and learn about organic milk at the same time. A media PR campaign will run alongside, while clips of the farmers will be put on sites such as YouTube and MySpace.

"The value in organic milk is in wellbeing," said a campaign spokesman. "We wanted to translate this into something modern and relevant."

Sales of organic milk rose from £59m in February 2005 to £110m in August 2006. But since then growth has slowed and is now starting to plateau, according to the Milk Development Council.

Value sales of organic milk in the past year have risen 9.5% to £126m, largely attributed to a 5.5% rise in the price of organic milk, with an average litre now costing 75p. Retail sales of organic milk remained static between July and December 2007 before rising slightly in January 2008, with overall sales up 3.8% year-on-year by volume to 168 million litres.

Slowing sales by volume can largely be attributed to UK organic milk producers being at maximum capacity, said OMSCo chief executive Huw Bowles. However, he said a number of farmers were in conversion to produce a further 140 million litres in the next two years, although not all would be destined for the liquid market.

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