Canadian dairy producers will receive a one percent price increase Feb. 1 for milk sold for use in food products and for processing.
For the first time in years, processors and dairy product retailers aren’t too unhappy.
The Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, a staunch foe of what it considers price-inflating supply management, called it a “responsible pricing decision” by the Canadian Dairy Commission.
Dairy Processors of Canada president Don Jarvis said it was a reasonable increase.
However, he noted that the commission’s decision on support prices for butter and skim milk powder that set the benchmark for industrial milk prices no longer guides provincial decisions on fluid milk prices.
“Fluid milk prices for 2008 have been set between 3.5 and four percent higher,” Jarvis said. “So consumer prices for milk are going up a lot.”
Shelley Crabtree, communications official with Dairy Farmers of Canada, said milk producers will fall behind with a one percent increase because costs are rising much faster.
At the farm level, the increase will be 0.7 cents per litre in the price of industrial milk.
