IAN POTTER ASSOCIATES 9th March 2012
Specialist Agricultural Quota & Entitlement Brokers
Telephone 01335 324594 Fax 01335 324584
Website www.ipaquotas.co.uk Email Issue No. 663
Today / Last Week / Change / 4 Weeks Ago / 1 Year agoClean / 0.15ppl / 0.15ppl / - / 0.20pl / 0.20pl
AMPE / 28.00ppl / 28.00ppl / 29.00ppl / 32.40ppl
MCVE / 32.24ppl / 32.24ppl / 32.67ppl / 32.88ppl
Producers in E & W / 10,718 / 10,755 / 10,975
£ : $ / £1.58 / £1.59 / -£0.01 / £158 / £1.61
£ : € / £1.20 / £1.20 / - / £1.19 / £1.16
Crude Oil / £126 / £126 / £118 / £104
Wheat / £ / £169 / - / £171 / £206
Soya meal / £ / £288 / £277 / £305
(Commodity and currency prices – source BOCM Pauls)
Milk Quota Available – Only 21 Days left to the 30th March Deadline
360,572 litres 3.99% @ 0.25ppl
Should you require any information or prices on available milk quota, please contact
Single Farm Payment available - Only 23 Days left to the 2nd April Deadline
150.00 English NON SDA £210 each
52.06 English NON SDA £210 each
7.00 English NON SDA £220 each
Should you require any information or prices on available entitlements please contact
Dairy Crest set to sell its profitable French branded spreads business
Whilst a number of analysts, commentators and industry people are watching DC with interest few, if any, anticipated this morning’s announcement to the City of DC’s intention to put the For Sale Board up for its St Hubert brand, which DC acquired from Uniq in January 2007 for £248 million
Whilst any sale will significantly reduce DC’s debt of around £365 million it is certainly a surprise move. As commented on dairyindustrynewsletter.com “In DC’s last full trading statement for the half year Apr/Sep 2011, DC quoted profits of £54m, of which the spreads division delivered £32m.”
There is an interesting if not curious paragraph in the official DC notification to the City, which reads:
“A disposal would reduce Dairy Crest's debt and provide it with a number of alternatives which include releasing some proceeds to shareholders, investing in its core business and making strategic acquisitions of branded businesses in the UK. This would further improve Dairy Crest's strong position in the consolidating UK dairy market. Any acquisitions would be synergistic and made within strict financial criteria, as will any decision over the future of St Hubert.” This certainly reads as though we will be writing many more column inches in 2012 on developments at DC.
February Production
February provisional milk production for the UK was 1.056 billion litres, which represents a year on year increase of 33 million litres (+2.7% on February 2010 deliveries of 1.023 billion litres).
This takes the cumulative production for the first 11 months of this quota year to 12.294 billion, which represents an increase of 139 million or +1%.
Butterfats continue to race away with February weighing in at 4.13% (Feb 2011 3.99%) and year to date butterfat is up a whopping 12 points averaging 4.06%.
£17million investment at First Milk’s Maelor factory
Work to redevelop First Milk’s Maelor, Nr Wrexham cheese packing site will soon begin and will also involve the creation of a UK centre of excellence for cheese packing and storage. The total capital investment from the on site parties is around £17 million and is due for completion in the autumn of next year.
£3.5 million investment at Glanbia Cheese’s Llangefni factory
This is more capital investment in a Welsh cheese processing factory, which will increase Glanbia’s mozzarella output.
Rock Farm Dairy back in action
Following last week’s appointment of PWC as Administrators for Rock Farm Dairy Limited, the dairy was only without milk deliveries for around 48 hours.
Cool Milk at Schools Limited founder Jon Thornes stepped forward and agreed a 3 month toll processing deal with the Administrators with an option to extend. Having said that Jon’s to agree a deal to secure a long term arrangement with both the receiver and Rock Farm which would involve a long term lease of the processing site from the family and acquisition of the processing plant from the receivers.
During the week milk has been purchased on the spot market predominantly from County Milk who themselves were a creditor to the collapsed dairy for around £200k. The factory is now running at around 50% capacity utilising around half of the staff, the rest having been made redundant.
Since Wednesday Jon Thornes and Rock Farm have been visiting most of the 22 farmers who supplied the dairy with milk before its collapse in the hope of tempting them to supply a new business called UK Dairy Sales Limited.
The deal for farmers is a weekly milk payment of +1ppl on their old Rock Farm price paid on the Wednesday of the following week. In addition, an interest free loan to the value of their unpaid milk, to be repaid at a rate of 0.5ppl supplied each year, which means it will take several years to pay off. Any farmer who takes up the loan automatically moves to standard monthly milk payments. Assuming a long term deal is secured with the family and receiver, Jon’s plan is to link his farmer price to either a basket or a specific contract whilst still maintaining the 1ppl premium.
Note, in total supplying farmers have lost approximately £800,000 in milk money due to the collapse.
Many customers of the failed dairy have been retained by Jon but undoubtedly the main driving force behind Jon Thorne’s involvement is his urgent need to continue to supply locally sourced school milk for his Cool Milk business.
At Tuesday’s meeting of supplying farmers, receiver Stephen Oldfield became a bouncer for a few minutes when he decided to oust Embleton Hall Dairies’ Paul and Michael Thompson, who were judged to be not invited!
More daft under valuing deals
Pound Stretcher, Huddersfield - 79p for 2ltr of Wiseman Milk. The email we received stated the author witnessed corner shop keepers filling their trolleys with milk faster than the staff were filling the shelves.
SILAGE WANTED
For a dairy unit. Must be good quality with a minimum of an artic load obviously with good access for loading. Preferably wrapped but pit silage is a possibility. Located within 80 miles of the English side of Shrewsbury. (Apologies to Welsh readers it’s nothing personal). Email details to