The NFU Next Generation Forum's Rob Raven shares his experiences of the team's most recent farm visits and what they could mean for members and British dairy.
He writes:
As we approached Yew Tree Dairy in Wigan the enormous tower visible on approach shows that this is no ordinary dairy, and inside there is something quite remarkable. The Woodcock family run this impressive dairy, capable of taking in milk from a large surrounding area, producing bottles on site, and delivering out milk and cream of all grades.
The jewel in the crown however, is the newly installed milk drying facility, something the Next Gen group had previously identified as a subject of interest to UK agriculture because of the excellent export opportunity it offers. The dryer has the ability to take in a million litres of fresh milk a day, and dry it down to powder and store indefinitely.
A facility capable of turning a highly perishable and bulky product like milk into different products depending on market requirement, which can so easily be transported around the world, is exactly what the dairy industry needs and the Next Gen group wholeheartedly endorse the project!
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Yew Tree have been successful in shipping powder all over the world, as well as supplying powder to many food processors within the UK, who used to import it, this greatly increasing the demand for fresh milk produced in the UK. The dryer looks like something from a NASA space station, with 40,000 hours of stainless steel welding involved in the construction of the 35m high machine. This business was built up from a simple milk round 30 or so years ago, and is testament to the hard work and innovation of not just the Woodcock family, but of all of our British dairy farmers.
We also visited T Wilson & Son who supply big name supermarkets and the catering trade with fresh fruit and veg. This was a large and complex business requiring the partners to share the duties of growing high quality produce to ever improving standards, managing the labour intensive harvest operations, running the high tech packhouse as well as the responsibility of being a large employer. We saw lettuces being harvested having been grown under huge nets to protect from some extremely bold Liverpudlian pigeons.
The business is a credit to him and his family, and we are grateful for the opportunity to visit, it was a great experience, for all of us. Al’s business is probably the most directly exposed to retailers. Therefore it was interesting to learn about how Al’s family business had to adapt in response to retailers’ decisions and the impact of the introduction of the National Living Wage.