Industry insiders have been predicting it since last autumn, but it’s finally coming home to roost. Retail supply is just about OK, but bulk butter and cheese for the kitchen is getting harder to source. Wyke Farms in Somerset have just announced that until they sort out a reliable supply of organic milk, they won’t be offering any of their excellent organic Cheddars – our ‘house’ cheeses for over a decade. Fortunately, Lye Cross offer a more than adequate alternative – for now.
As usual, it’s all down to price. Things had got a bit better but in 2023, with inflation running at 10%+, I can’t help suspecting that it suited both supermarket multiples and tuck shop manager (Jeremy Hunt) to really put the squeeze on the supply chain and as we all know, the buck will always stop with the primary producer (i.e. the farmers). Farmgate prices that had been edging towards the mid 50’s (pence per litre) started going the other way – fast and far enough to convince farmers to either get out of dairying, or convert back to conventional.
I’m not sure what’s happening to the UK dairy herd as a whole, but I’m definitely not seeing many cows out in the fields enjoying the summer sunshine and grass. That’s because if you buy conventional milk, there’s a significant and growing chance that it will come from a cow that hasn’t seen a blade of grass since it started producing milk. Unless you buy directly from the farm, there’s no guarantee the cows will be any more free range than, dare I say it, a broiler chicken. Unless, of course, you buy organic.
So, although there’s still plenty of organic milk, yoghurt and cream on the shelves, they’re the higher margin products dairies produce first. The way it works is that if there is any milk left over it will go into longer shelf life, lower profit, lines like butter and cheese or, right at the bottom of the ladder, milk powder. Let’s hope it’s not a sign of things to come because with the dairy on the farm our supplies of milk and cream are reasonably secure. The dairy is in the fortunate position of having us and Riverford Organic whatever (you know the ones) taking the vast majority of capacity in fresh, ‘tier one’ products and not having to worry about butter and cheese. Sadly, in our kitchen, we don’t have that luxury.
More generally….at our 40th anniversary field day last year, the question was asked how relevant organics still is. The general feeling was that it has a had its day and served its purpose by shaming conventional agriculture into line. It’s a tricky one because while there are all kinds of small scale, extremely worthy regenerative agriculture initiatives that for a plethora of reasons (often, when you dig, because of the constraints or they are simply too up themselves) refuse to get certified, organic is still the only label that guarantees cows aren’t kept indoors throughout their lactation, or that noenicitinoid treated seed has no place in organic UK agriculture. The new generation of food producers seem to think everything should be on trust. Trust is great, but I only tend to believe what people tell me, not what they tell somebody else so, while happy to buy vegetables from the regenerative farm gate, I wouldn’t be so happy with a ‘Gen Ag’ aisle in the supermarket. Does anyone actually know what regenerative agriculture actually is?
As you may have seen (we’ve had a few comments) there are a one or two more conventionally grown fruit and vegetables appearing in the Staverton and Yealmpton shops. Outside our local growers (including Riverford) sourcing reasonably priced certified organic produce has become a nightmare. So we’re having to look elsewhere. Where possible we’re trying to shop local. For example, last week we could have sourced fresh local caulis for less than half what we were paying for, not so fresh, organic DFL’s (estate agents vernacular for down from London). Limes would be less than half the price of organic. The organic ones just sit in the shelf and slowly dry up – making them look like even worse value – for 75p. So we’re having to make some difficult decisions that the ultra committed, deep-pocketed, organophile might find difficult to accept.