Asda faces milk protest

Asda is being targeted by angry dairy producers, after milk processor Arla Foods announced a 0.9p a litre price cut. Asda is the group's biggest customer.

A group of Arla suppliers from Shropshire will be handing out leaflets to shoppers outside Asda stores in the area on February 23 and are hoping the protest will spread to other parts of the county.

The group said it aims to inform people of the issues facing farmers and to let shoppers know that recent increases in the shelf price of milk have not benefited the dairy farmers.

Suppliers claim that, while the retail price of milk has gone up, the price they are being paid has stayed static or gone down.

Members of the Arla Foods Milk Partnership, which supplies 80 per cent of Arla's milk, have also been critical of their own leadership for agreeing to the price cut, which Arla said was necessary because of a fall in cream values.