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Dairy industry in the United Kingdom

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The dairy industry in the United Kingdom is the industry of dairy farming that takes place in the UK.

The CWS Creamery on Borough Road circa 1960

Production

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Price of milk in the UK from 1990 to 2019, both each month and the two-year average. Values are in 2019 prices[1]

In Europe, UK milk production is third after France & Germany and is around the tenth highest in the world. There are around 12,000 dairy farms in the UK.[2]

Around 14 billion litres of milk are commercially produced in the UK each year.

Britain eats around 2000 tonnes of cheese a day.

Production sites

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Buckinghamshire

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  • Arla Aylesbury, produces 10% of the UK's milk, and the world's largest milk production site

Cornwall

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Delivery

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Only 3% of milk in the UK is delivered to the door. There was an 80% drop in deliveries when supermarkets began to sell their own milk en-masse. The largest commercial deliverer of milk in the UK has around 500,000 customers; there has been a recent upswing in demand for door deliveries.

Regulation

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Production was regulated by the Milk Marketing Board until 1994; its processing division is now Dairy Crest. AHDB Dairy is a central resource for the UK dairy industry.

Environmental impact

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The dairy industry is a large source of waterway pollution in the UK. It is linked to half of all farm pollution, largely from the waste produced by cows.[3] This pollution leads to fish kills and general harm to river ecosystems.[4]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Latest UK milk prices and composition of milk". GOV.UK.
  2. ^ "Dairy | AHDB". ahdb.org.uk.
  3. ^ "Livestock farming polluted rivers 300 times in one year". 2022-12-16. Retrieved 2024-02-10.
  4. ^ Horton, Helena; reporter, Helena Horton Environment (2022-06-29). "Queen could revoke Davidstow cheddar royal warrant over river pollution". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-02-10.

Further reading

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  • Bailey, N. Z. Alison. "Trends in dairy farming and milk production: the cases of the United Kingdom and New Zealand." Achieving sustainable production of milk (Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing, 2017) pp. 301-324.
  • Crossley, Eric Lomax. The United Kingdom Dairy Industry (1959).
  • March, M. D., et al. "Current trends in British dairy management regimens." Journal of dairy science 97.12 (2014): 7985-7994. online
  • Taylor, David. "The English dairy industry, 1860-1930." Economic History Review 29.4 (1976): 585-601. online
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