Dairy UK has called for dairy processing to be recognised as critical national infrastructure.
Its latest white paper, Securing the UK’s Dairy Future: The Strategic Role of Dairy Processing in UK Food Security, Sustainability and Growth, sets out the sector’s importance to the UK’s food supply, economy and resilience.
The UK dairy sector collects and processes around 15 billion litres of milk each year, which the paper argues should “not be taken for granted, with raw milk not able to be practically stockpiled and requiring rapid and uninterrupted collection and processing”.
“The entire sector depends on this continuous-flow system in which farms, processors, logistics, energy infrastructure and customers are closely interconnected,” Dairy UK said.
“Dairy processing is an integral part of British agriculture and an essential part of the infrastructure that turns the milk produced on our farms into food for millions of people every day,” said Dairy UK CEO Dr Judith Bryans. “Our message is a simple one: every part of the dairy value chain matters. Farmers need strong and resilient processors, processors need strong and resilient farmers, and the country depends on both.”
The sector body added that significant and sustained investment had been made by both UK and internationally owned businesses in modern manufacturing capacity, energy systems, food safety, technology and decarbonisation.
Therefore, it has called for a “stable, predictable and competitive policy environment” to give businesses confidence to further invest for the future.
“The UK already recognises that sectors such as energy are so important to everyday life and national resilience that they need to be considered strategically,” Bryans added. “Dairy processing should be viewed in the same way within governmental and policy discussions.
“Its contribution to food and nutritional security, jobs, rural economies and the wider UK economy makes it an essential part of our national infrastructure.”
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