Possible UK milk shortages, as supply chain disrupted.
This stinks. Too bad they aren’t able to pivot to make cheese, butter, or yogurt to avoid so much waste.
It’s the collection of the milk that’s the issue. With drivers off sick with the virus, collection to usual schedules is getting lost - and the milk obviously needs to be collected whilst it’s still fresh, whether its going to be sold as fresh milk or butter/yoghurt/etc. .
UHT is a technical solution but there isn’t idle capacity there either. Idle capacity is not economically viable.
If you’re a small dairy farm (and most British farms are relatively small, with 200 being an average herd size) and expecting the processor to collect milk from you, every couple of days or so, then the issue arises when the processor says “Half of my drivers are sick and we just can’t get to for a while”. There is no way that small farm can do anything with the milk, except dispose of it.
Is raw milk popular in the UK or even legal? There is a bit of an underground market in the US but I believe consistently illegal (I’m not completely sure). I have a picture of people showing up with their own containers to collect milk.
Dave - it’s legal in the UK (except in Scotland) although very much a niche market. Here’s the law and advice from the Food Standards Agency:
Cheese, made from unpasteurised milk, is more common than the milk. You’ll find it in several of the top rated farmhouse cheddars (such as Montgomery or Keens) and Stichelton. The latter is a canny bit of marketing. It’s identical to Stilton (and the name is designed to be pronounced almost like Stilton) and it’s made in the same protected geographical area. However, it cannot be called Stilton as the “protection” states Stilton must be made from pasteurised milk. My favourite local cheese - Bourne’s Cheshire, which I buy at the farmers market - is also unpasteurised.
I know one farm shop in the Lake District, where they sell their own milk via a vending machine in the shop, so entirely compliant with the law. I have it in mind that you can also fill your own containers from the machine.
John “Google” Hartley @Harters you spoil me.
Interesting. My thought process was making a small dent in milk waste. I’m sure that there are few dairy farms set up for cheese-making. That would get us back to the transportation problem again. The farmers have no real option. Thinking about reducing the total even by a little bit.
I have had raw milk cheese when living in the UK. I can’t say what I tried was remarkably different from that based on pasteurized milk. I didn’t do any deterministic tasting.
Hope you and the missus are doing well.
We are. I think we’re adjusting to lockdown pretty well. But ask me again in 2 months. Hope you and yours are fine.
We get raw milk here in Maryland every week. If someone really wants to, they can acquire the milk legally. If it becomes widespread, I imagine Annapolis can close the loopholes pretty easily.
Thanks @bmorecupcake. As I said, I wasn’t sure. Not personally interested but always pleased to be better informed.
