Murray Goulburn

Has the MG co-op fed Aussie dairy farmers to the wolves?

/ dairymilkmaid / 9 Comments

If $1 milk is unsustainable, how is the Coles deal locking in pricing with Murray Goulburn a good thing? Good question. Has MG made a giant mistake? Will it mean a mass exodus by NSW dairy farmers and will the big co-op do its socks on the deal, taking the hopes of dairy farmers down, down, down with it? Blair Speedy of The Australian certainly seems to think so.

I decided to ask some rather blunt questions of two men in the know: independent dairy analyst, Jon Hauser of Xcheque and Murray Goulburn big-wig and general manager shareholder relations, Robert Poole.

1. How can MG make a profit supplying fresh milk to Coles if Lion could not?
Robert Poole refused to comment on Lion’s circumstances but said the co-op’s new factories would be “purpose-built, state of the art and the most efficient milk processing plants in Australia”.

“We will make a good return supplying Coles and will have the capacity to supply other customers in time, too, making even higher returns.”

Jon Hauser goes further. “I can see how 10 cents per litre in costs can readily be taken out of the chain,” he says. “There is a view in the dairy community that milk should be sold for more than a dollar per litre when it’s being sold cheaper than that right now in the USA and the United Kingdom. The local processors have been retaining much more of the milk dollar than international processors.”

2. What risk is there to the $120 million of farmers’ funds that will be spent on the new factories?
Poole says quite flatly that the cost of the factories is well and truly covered by the 10-year Coles contract: “We have total security. There will be no cross-subsidisation of this investment – it will be fully funded by the agreement with Coles.”.

3. Why hasn’t MG sold fresh milk into supermarkets before?
“Historically, we would have had to submit a tender for milk supply. And what, build factories in the hope that we won?,” says Poole. “This was a golden opportunity. Nobody gets a 10-year contract like this but Coles came to Murray Goulburn because it wanted to work with farmers.”

4. How does it work for MG?
According to Poole: “Under the supply agreement, the price to Coles is based on a farm-gate price and the cost of processing plus a comfortable profit margin. There’s a rise and fall clause that means the price reflects the changing value of the milk on international markets.”

Hauser explains that the New Zealand and Australian dairy industries are “price takers”, unlike the Europeans and Americans, who have greater control over pricing.

“Australia can’t control the export price but, reading between the lines, Murray Goulburn is using the Coles deal to increase its control over the price it gets for its milk and will position itself for a much greater role in the 2 billion-litre fresh milk market. Because MG will slash the cost of delivering fresh milk to supermarkets, I predict the co-op will be selling supermarkets a billion litres of fresh milk a year by 2023.”

“Aside from milk, the deal also allows MG to range its cheese, butter and spreads in Coles, which makes it even more attractive.”

5. Has the Coles and Murray Goulburn deal devalued milk?
Poole was ever the diplomat on this one, saying the retail price of milk was “up to the supermarkets”. Hauser is a tad more direct. “For people to say milk will be devalued is absolute rubbish,” he says. “This is a great deal for MG’s farmer members. Is it MG’s responsibility to stay out of the market and let nonsense economics run the show?”

6. How will this affect NSW dairy farmers?
Hauser says many NSW dairy farmers will need to reassess their businesses. Milk price in both NSW and Victoria will be based on a mixture of domestic and export value with the export market being a major driver of that value.

The man himself, Robert Poole, says the NSW price will reflect “supply and demand, international prices and a premium that takes into account the added costs associated with supplying exact volumes of milk every month of the year”.

Will it shake up the NSW dairy sector, with its large number of very small farms? Undoubtedly, says Hauser. “NSW’s dairy farmers sold themselves into trouble when they handed over the responsibility for, and the value of, their products to private processors, who have no interest in their viability. Ironically, it is a Victorian farmer cooperative that is now reclaiming control in NSW.”

7. Why should Australians buy Devondale fresh milk rather than Coles homebrand milk?
“That you’ll have to wait and see,” teases Poole. “Seriously, it’s up to us to place Devondale in the market carefully, with the right price, packaging and provenance and other benefits that will appeal to shoppers.”

It’s even confused the Chaser team at The Checkout

/ dairymilkmaid / 6 Comments

Last night’s episode of The Checkout tackled the supermarket milk war in all its bewildering glory. They did a pretty good job but I reckon even the very clever Craig Reucassel got a little confused.

The problem with The Checkout’s closing argument is this: while processors don’t pay farmers more for each litre of branded milk they sell, they do pay farmers less when there is less money to go around (as Craig mentioned). So, when the processors sell less branded milk at lower margins because of the stiff competition from homebrand milk, they have to cut their costs.

Now, if you were a multinational processor, would it be easier to protect your profits by negotiating a better deal with the duopoly or simply tell dairy farmers that the price of milk had fallen? You guessed right, and they did, with disastrous consequences for farmers in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia in particular.

In other words, if you are among the one in four Aussies who buys branded milk, good on you! Until Murray Goulburn and Norco get their new efficient and 100% farmer-owned factories operating in Sydney and Brisbane, the $1 supermarket milk war will continue to hurt farmers in those states. Sadly, there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel for farmers in WA and the milk supply there is so small now that it’s being trucked across the Nullabor to keep Perth going. There is a real possibility that UHT will become the new norm there, as it is in many parts of Europe.

The second area of confusion for The Checkout comes in its update about the MG deal with Coles. Here’s an extract:

“Coles is currently run by a coterie of former Tesco employees so it is perhaps unsurprising that this latest step mimics the approach in the UK. British supermarkets have moved to contract with farmers and cut the margin the processors make. This has led to higher farm gate prices for the farmers contracting with Tesco – but also more expensive requirements for them. Similarly, a lot of additional costs are expected for Australian farmers collectives, with Murray Goulburn spending $120 million on milk processing plants.”

The additional costs that come with Tesco deals are not in processing plants. It’s in on-farm compliance costs as Tesco dictates some aspects of how the small number of contracted farms are run.

In our case, the Coles deal is with the farmer-owned processor, Murray Goulburn, and nobody is talking about Coles making demands about the colour I paint my dairy door or how I raise my calves. Why is it different? A handful of (relatively powerless) farmers supply Tesco direct (and Woolies under its new Farmers Own scheme) whereas Coles is picking on someone closer to its own size in Murray Goulburn, which boasts annual revenues of $2.29 billion.

Co-operatives have never looked so vital to the survival of Australian farmers and the ability of Australians to take fresh food for granted.

Coles has forged this deal with MG because, contrary to Craig’s opinion, Australians aren’t stupid. They know $1 milk is not sustainable and they’ve started voting with their wallets: yes, the share of homebrand milk is falling.

This is a huge win for the little people of Australia – dairy farmers and milk drinkers alike. We truly are what we eat.

The co-op does a deal with the devil and keeps its soul

/ dairymilkmaid / 5 Comments

I never thought I’d say this but some of my milk will be sold on Coles’ shelves in both homebrand and Devondale cartons from next year. And I’m pleased.

You see, the co-op we supply, Murray Goulburn, is a giant too. It processes around 35 per cent of Australia’s milk and earns $1.17 billion in exports, making MG one of the largest container exporters from the Port of Melbourne. In other words, it doesn’t have to sell to Coles and Woolies, giving it much greater leverage with the supermarket duopoly. It also has the scale needed to be an efficient processor. Most importantly, its number one goal as a 100% farmer owned co-op is to maintain the profitability of its farmers.

All the same, it is confronting when “our” co-op does a deal with the devil. Has it sold out on us?

I asked dairy analyst, Jon Hauser of Xcheque for his thoughts. “My view is the news is very, very positive,” he said. “This is one of the few things that has the potential to lift the returns for farmers by maybe two or three cents per litre and, perhaps more importantly, it can reduce the volatility of farm gate prices.”

The thing is, while Murray Goulburn exports around half of its milk, reducing our reliance on the supermarkets, that exposure to international commodity prices and the exchange rate can be painful, too. International commodity prices rise and fall like a cork in a bottle and the average Aussie dairy farmer loses about $9,000 (according to my back of the envelope sums) with every cent the Australian dollar rises against the US dollar. Of course, it’s at record highs right now and not looking like falling below parity any time soon. The uncertainty that comes with that volatility makes it very hard for farmers to attract finance and invest with confidence in their businesses.

On the other hand, I wondered why Murray Goulburn could make a profitable $1 milk deal with Coles when Lion, the company currently processing Coles’ homebrand milk, cannot. Jon Hauser thinks it’s largely an issue of supply chain efficiency.

“Leaving aside the aberration of $1.00 discount milk, branded milk retails at about $1.60 per litre and supermarket private label at about $1.20 per litre,” Hauser says.

“Farmers are getting 25 – 35 % of the consumer dollar. In the UK and the US farmer share is closer to 50%. Direct supply by a farmer co-op removes the middleman that is adding cost in marketing and collecting additional value from their brands.

“It is true that the supermarkets will become ‘the brand’ but the farmer co-op should also able to retrieve some of this value. In the case of the Coles/MG deal, MG will get part of that return from the ranging of their own Devondale brand.

“What is most critical in maintaining a balance of commercial power is the ability of farmers to sell their milk to a range of alternate customers. Murray Goulburn has the diversity of product and markets to do that and can now genuinely claim that they have a balanced portfolio of domestic and export sales”.

It all sounds very positive for existing Victorian Murray Goulburn dairy farmers like me. But what about for farmers near Sydney, who have been supplying Lion and Parmalat and who traditionally get so much more for their milk than we do yet depend almost exclusively on supermarkets?

Mike Logan, the head of Dairy Connect, which represents the NSW dairy sector, describes today’s announcement as a “game changer” and in a letter to farmers, had this to say:

“We have three big changes on the table at once;
1. The manufacturing milk price rise
2. The drop in production so that NSW and Qld are now short of fresh milk
3. New models of supply to the supermarkets

“This all adds up to change.

“For the NSW dairy industry it may mean:
1. Investment in new processing capacity
2. A new pricing model for the whole fresh milk industry
3. Re-energising brands such as Devondale and Norco
4. Relocation of a large number of farmer dairy suppliers from one supplier to another
5. Changing role of the processors and processing capacity
6. A risk for the milk vendors as the processing sector changes.

“…the supermarkets have been true to their word and have been looking for new ways to create a sustainable future for the NSW dairy industry. We have to look past the $1/litre milk and build a new future.”

“However, these changes will be at considerable cost to some people. We need to be careful and respectful of the impact of these changes. We do not want to create a situation of winners and losers.”

The reality is, though, that there will be losers. Commenting on the future of the current processor of Coles’ milk, Lion, prominent NSW dairy farmer, Lynne Strong (@CHDairies) said on Twitter that “They have lost QLD plus NSW Coles contracts Cant see them surviving this one #sadbutrue”.

Lion is almost certainly not going to be the only loser in what all agree will be massive upheaval in New South Wales. But there will be winners and maybe, just maybe, represented by an increasingly powerful co-operative, dairy farmers will claw back a little dignity. And you, dear milk drinker, will soon be able to buy 100 per cent farmer-owned fresh milk knowing that all the profits stay right here in Australia.

Co-op does fresh milk deal with Coles

/ dairymilkmaid / 4 Comments

Murray Goulburn, the co-op that processes our milk, sent out an email this morning that will have a huge impact on dairy farming: it will supply Coles fresh milk for the homebrand and our own Devondale milk. Here’s an excerpt from MG’s press release:

“• Devondale announces 10-year private label daily milk partnership with Coles
• The Co-operative will also relaunch Devondale branded daily pasteurised milk
• Devondale cheese will return to Coles’ shelves
• Deal will deliver additional profits to Devondale dairy farmers
Devondale (Murray Goulburn Co-operative Co. Limited), the Australian farmer Co-operative, today announced a landmark, ten-year partnership to supply Coles with daily pasteurised milk for its private label brands in Victoria and NSW from July 2014.

Separately, the Co-operative will also relaunch Devondale-branded daily pasteurised milk, through an initially exclusive agreement with Coles, and Devondale cheese will return to Coles’ shelves.
The milk price paid by Coles under this unique agreement locks in a premium that will deliver additional profits to Devondale dairy farmers over the life of the contract. The premium is not affected by price fluctuations in international dairy markets or movements in the Australian currency and the contract
contains rise and fall provisions to protect the premium farmers receive.
As a Co-operative, Devondale will return 100% of the profits from this agreement to its farmer-shareholders through higher farm-gate returns.

Devondale Managing Director, Gary Helou, commented, “The daily pasteurised milk segment is currently mainly supplied by foreign owned companies that repatriate their profits to overseas shareholders. The entry of Australia’s farmer owned Co-operative into this market segment cuts out the middle man and delivers profits directly to farmers.

“This is a logical growth opportunity that extends Devondale’s domestic presence in consumer markets and is expected to lock in returns that will be paid to farmers through higher farm-gate prices. These higher prices will benefit all dairy farmers.”

It goes on to say that:

“We appreciate that there has been considerable public concern about the pricing policy for private label milk. Under the contract agreed with Coles the retail shelf price for milk does not determine the profits that will be received by MG supplier-shareholders.”

“MG expects to receive returns that represent a premium over and above the price available in other markets such as commodity dairy ingredients. The contract is expected to lock in this premium for ten years, regardless of what is happening in international dairy markets or movements in the Australian currency. All profits on this contract will be returned to all supplier-shareholders through improved farmgate returns. This new revenue stream will also reduce volatility by providing an additional domestic earnings stream as a balance to fluctuating export earnings.

“As part of this expansion MG will be taking on new supplier-shareholders across existing and new supply zones to meet the growing demand on our milk supply. This includes growing a local milk supply in the Sydney region. The Sydney milk pricing arrangements are yet to be finalised but importantly, the arrangement provides sufficient flexibility for MG to offer a fair farm-gate price which will be supported by Coles. In other words it is expected that all profits from this project will be returned to our total supplier-shareholder base.”

Will have more on this for you later today.

The totem of $1 milk

/ dairymilkmaid / 7 Comments

Two years ago today, Coles offered up milk as a sacrifice in the name of market share. It’s now become totemic in Victoria.

The reality is that about two-thirds of Australia’s milk comes from Victoria’s cows but not a lot of my farm’s milk ends up in the supermarket fridge.

We supply the Murray Goulburn Co-op, which processes about one-third of Australia’s milk and has the technology to make a huge variety of dairy foods and ingredients. It sells to the highest bidder, so the percentage that gets exported depends on how well global commodity prices compare with local dairy markets. In 2011/12, 49 per cent was exported, which is pretty typical.

But Victorian farmers are demoralised. Many are in desperate financial positions. The effects of the collapse in global commodity prices, skyrocketing energy prices, high feed costs and the high Australian dollar are clear but shrouded in secrecy is the impact of the supermarket war.

While $1 milk gets all the attention, other dairy products like butter and cheese have also been hit by the supermarket price war. Murray Goulburn has invested heavily in relaunching its supermarket brands and CEO Gary Helou infamously got all hot under the collar last month about Coles’ refusal to stock MG’s Devondale cheese. But nobody can talk about how Coles and MG negotiate our livelihoods behind the tinted windows of “Darth Vader’s Castle” as the Coles HQ is fondly nicknamed by its suppliers.

We’ll probably never know just what the damage has been – only that our situation is very different from that in states like NSW and Queensland where there is pretty much total reliance on fresh milk sales.

But what those claiming to be “the voice of reason” dismiss is the effect ‘milk that’s cheaper than water’ has on the psyche. It signals to farmers that a fair go no longer matters. And that’s what hurts the most on Australia Day.

Friendly fire from the milk co-op

/ dairymilkmaid / 23 Comments

I don’t think MG’s chief banana, Gary Helou, was expecting its farmer shareholders to be pleased with the co-op’s rebranding exercise. Referring to the Dev ‘n Dale ads, he writes to his farmers:

“We have received several comments about the adverts in relation to farmer image. It is important to note that the Dev and Dale adverts have been carefully designed to achieve consumer cut-through to drive brand recognition and sales volumes.”

“This strategy is based on humour and the comic characters were designed to be over-the-top so they could not be construed as real representations of our farmers.

“The Dev and Dale characters were also developed to create greater recollection of the brand. Earlier market research found that consumers did not have strong recollection of the Devondale name or brand, and this means consumers are not often enough considering our products for purchase.

“We will monitor consumer response carefully to ensure there are no negative connotations for industry image.”

In earlier letters, the co-op had explained that the old branding was associated with a low-cost positioning and it was important to add value to the brand. I guess Dev ‘n Dale is their interpretation of “upmarket” then.

Please let me know – are the ads funny, memorable and indicative of a premium brand?

PS: For an alternate approach, check out Yeo Valley’s UK dairy promo.

“MG understands dairy farming profitably…will be very challenging…”

/ dairymilkmaid / 11 Comments

Yesterday, Murray Goulburn Co-op, which buys and processes our milk announced how much we will be paid from next week. It equates to roughly 33 cents per litre.

In the letter announcing the farm-gate milk price, Murray Goulburn CEO, Gary Helou, writes:

“MG understands that dairy farming profitably at these opening and forecast prices will be very challenging
and we will do everything possible to increase farmgate returns in the short and long term.”

I appreciate Mr Helou’s frankness but, to be honest, it sent shivers up my spine. It reminded me of 2009, when it was clear that no matter how long, hard or smart we worked, we would lose money. In fact, the average dairy farmer took on $220,000 extra debt. This year, it looks like we’ll lose about 3 cents for every litre of milk we supply. Ironically, that could mean we try to produce more milk in an attempt to offset our fixed costs or a lot less milk if we instead decide to sell cows. It will also mean I spend more time trying to earn an off-farm income to reduce the impact on our family.

This is essentially what makes dairy farming a very tricky business: we have one product that we sell to one customer at a price they set. No wonder we’re a resourceful bunch.

Carbon tax misfires

/ dairymilkmaid / 4 Comments

I imagined there would be riots when the average Australian family faced a 10% cut in income as a result of the carbon tax. But for some reason, nobody seems to be making a big deal about it.

I suspect it’s pretty quiet because although mine is a very average family (two kids and a dog), we’re not on the political radar.

The carbon tax is expected to slug us around $5000 per year – a whopping 10% of the average dairy farm family’s income. As reported in The Land and the Australian Financial Review:

The three majors that will pay the new tax from July 1 are already investing in low-carbon technologies but Murray Goulburn Co-operative estimates rising electricity prices will cut the annual income of the average farmer by $5000 a year, The Australian Financial Review reports.

“Profit in the average dairy business in recent years has averaged $50,000,” one MGC general manager, Robert Poole, said. “So that represents a 10 per cent cut. For the average dairy farmer, the tax is going to cut hard into their profits.”

How can this be? Well, because even though I plant 1000 trees or more on the farm every year and have built some of the most carbon-rich soils in the country (up to 22% organic matter content), I cannot participate in the poorly framed Carbon Farming Initiative.

The milk processor we supply, Murray Goulburn, will face increased costs of $10 million per annum and will pass those costs onto farmers – guaranteed. It is guaranteed to do so because MG is 100% farmer-owned so the buck quite literally stops with us. Our fertiliser, fuel and electricity prices will also rise.

Ironically, if MG was spewing out far more greenhouse gases, we might not face this crippling tax because “emission intensive” businesses that export just 10% of their products are considered “trade exposed” and given special concessions. MG exports around half of our milk but because it’s not that “emission intensive” (aka dirty), it misses out on concessions.

Please, can somebody explain the logic behind this?

Murray Goulburn Co-op sheds jobs: why it’s happening

/ dairymilkmaid / 3 Comments

The co-op we supply, Murray Goulburn, has made an announcement that immediately made me sad. In an email sent to its farmers yesterday, managing director Gary Helou, wrote:

“The change program embarked on by MG is even more critical given increasing cost pressure and the recent significant decline in world market prices due to higher global milk supply. This initiative will help reduce the impact of falling world prices and a high Australian dollar on our supplier/shareholders. As a result of these changes, MG’s total workforce is set to reduce by 12% or 301 roles.”

While it makes me sad, I’m not surprised. Farmers are struggling to survive (less water, increasing costs, horrible prices and now the carbon tax slug estimated to cost us $7,500 each) and milk flows have dropped as a result. When appointed as the new CEO a few months ago, Mr Helou announced he would cut the co-op’s operating costs by a whopping 25%. That’s a lot of money.

As he went on to write in yesterday’s email:

“We continue to employ more than 2,100 people, mostly in rural and regional Australia, and contribute an estimated $6 billion to the Australian economy. These changes will make a significant contribution to our goal of reducing operating costs by $100 million this year and set us on the path to becoming a world leader in dairy foods”.

To give you some background, MG is Australia’s last big dairy farmer co-operative and processes around 35% of the country’s milk. You can’t own shares in MG unless you supply the co-op milk, so all the profits go straight back to farmers. The other big players are privately owned and profit from buying milk at the lowest possible price and selling it at the highest possible price. In effect, this means that MG tends to set the benchmark for the price dairy farmers like me are paid for their milk.

This is why I feel torn about the “change program”. On one hand, I am worried that somewhere along the way, we will weaken MG’s co-op values but, on the other, we desperately need MG to be strong and efficient. Neither the 2,100 MG workforce or Australia’s dairy farmers can afford to lose this gentle giant. Please be careful, Mr Helou, and good luck.