Arla Foods expands UK farmer network on growing demand for milk across emerging markets

Growing demand for milk in Africa and China has led the producer of the Cravendale to almost double the number of British famers who are stakeholders in the business, it was announced today.

Dairy co-operative Arla Foods has added 1,300 UK farmers as owners of the business, taking the total to 2,800.

The influx of farmer-owners comes ahead of an end to EU production quotas in 2015, which will give farmers greater access to growing markets in China, Africa and the Middle East.

The company’s head of milk, Ash Amirahmadi, told Reuters that it “cannot make enough at the moment in terms of the demand” in Africa, while China’s infant formula market is set to double in value to $25 billion (£15 billion) by 2017.

Arla is the UK’s biggest cheese, butter and milk producer, known for its Cravendale milk, Anchor butter and licensed products such as Lurpak. It produces about 3.2 billion litres of milk in the UK each year and has an annual turnover of £2 billion.

Originally a Scandinavian co-operative, Arla also has stakeholders in Denmark, Sweden, Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany. The company said it would opening up registration for ownership again this month.