Organic food group the Soil Association has said prices for organic dairy products must remain high, just a week after UK super- market Tesco promised to slash its organic milk price.
Speaking at a conference, Soil Association director Patrick Holden said: “Organic milk is a high quality product – that should be reflected in the price paid and relayed through information available to consumers at the point of sale.” The Organic Milk Suppliers Co-operative (OMSCo) claimed that sales of organic milk grew 16% in 2001.
Speaking at the conference, OMSCo marketing director David Whiting said: “This is not the time to drop the price [for organic milk] as some suggest. There is no evidence that this would boost sales”.
At the conference, the Soil Association called for more co-operation between producers, processors and the retail chain.
The group also said that organic milk should be made available in schools and hospitals and that a campaign to raise consumers’ awareness of the benefits of organic products was needed.
In March, Tesco announced that it planned to drop the price of organic milk by as much as 11p (E0.17) per litre from 72p (E1.17) per litre.
Speaking to Dairy Industries International, a Tesco spokesman said that the price drop had been made possible through a deal with its supplier, co-operative Arla Foods. The deal means that Tesco will now have just one organic milk supplier.
He stressed that the announcement would not affect the farmgate price of the milk.
The Soil Assocation conference was sponsored by Tetra Pak.