Around 200 dairy farmers, former suppliers of Muller Milk in the Augsburg area of southern Germany, have launched their own drinking milk.

“Bayerische Bauern Milch” (Bavarian Farmers’ Milk) is a UHT product with 1.5% fat and is retailed by discounter Lidl at 89 c per litre. This is €0.8-0.9 above the cheapest UHT 1.5% milks available in Germany. The farmers decided to leave Muller this year after moves by the international processor to introduce a two year fixed price contract.

A milk export/import cooperative, Milk Product Traders Oberland (MPO), agreed to accept the daily delivery of some 240,000 kg of milk from the farmers. Prices now being paid by MPO, which still exports most of the milk south to Italian processors, run between €0.34-0.38/kg ex-farm and so are no great improvement on average milk prices in the country. But MPO also packages some of the milk and delivers it to Lidl. A 3.5% UHT milk is also planned and both farmers and processor hope that more money per litre will be channelled back to farmers if the “fair price” products prove successful with German consumers.