The real cost of Milk Haulage ?

westwards · Dec 21, 2017

Is there an Industry standard for the cost of milk haulage ?, Muller have more or less told producers in the north east of Scotland that they don't really want their milk with a 1.75p/litre charge for haulage back to Bellshill which from Aberdeen is 146 miles or 2 and 3/4 hours, although many of the farms are far closer they are all charged the same. Unless you are with Tesco.
FM started to charge for haulage and were threatened with loosing so many they had to pull back and rethink and now Arla are messing about with 3inch outlets and EODC and buffer tanks !!
Big producers get volume bonuses and small one's get penalties but they don't get different rates for haulage do they ? Producers near factories do not pay less do they ?
Yew Tree I think have some kind of haulage charge related to distance, but they seem to be the only one's with a transparent cost for haulage.
Do any of you know the real cost to haul your milk to the dairy/ creamery ? And who pays for all the secondary haulage?

kiwi pom · Dec 21, 2017

Don't know what it costs to haul but its a way more complicated job than many realise.
I should think in the UK one of the biggest factors would be how easy is it to get a big unit to your farm (tight lanes) and what farm access is like.
Whatever you think it might cost i'd say at least double it.

cattow · Dec 21, 2017

When I was with FM they told me it cost 1.87ppl to haul my milk the 23 miles to the dairy

dairyrow · Dec 21, 2017

I think arla are doing it because a few years back they were toying with the idea. Of an article that could deliver product and bring milk back on the return run from customer. But I do t know how successful it was tbh. I do think they have a driver shortages as well which might not help

Sid · Dec 22, 2017

Haulage is a large and complicated issues.

We have a stop charge so every farm pays the same. Same as if you have a courier deliver costs the same if you have 1 package or 3.

Difference with milk is distance travelled. West Wales or Norfolk are a long way from where the milkneeds to be so a cost implication but also geography as hauling through the tunel can be very cost effective.

It doesn't matter how you charge, per litre/stop/distance someone somewhere won't be happy.

Sometimes the road network will make it unfeasable to use some vehicles but the farmer is willing should he be penalised?
Wagon and drags are used alot around here. 3 Arla ones go by most days

Y Fan Wen · Dec 22, 2017

If you patronise the A470/487 you will be familiar with the Mansel tankers hauling milk up and down the principality. Someone said there were 8 tankers shuttling back and forth but I think it is more now 'cos I have got very near 8 count on one journey.

Bald Rick · Dec 22, 2017

Y Fan Wen said:
If you patronise the A470/487 you will be familiar with the Mansel tankers hauling milk up and down the principality. Someone said there were 8 tankers shuttling back and forth but I think it is more now 'cos I have got very near 8 count on one journey.

18 per day from Carmarthenshire to Glanbia on the sainted Island. Mind, they take whey back down south so it's cost effective in that way
We are 6 miles from the creamery and as far as I know, pay the same rate as there are no detailed transport costs on our milk schedules

vantage · Dec 22, 2017

Distance to the factory is almost irrelevant,within reason.More importantly does the factory have sufficient milk to run efficiently?If so within the locality then great but if not ,as likely it will need to be shipped in. Oh yes ,was the factory built in the right place initially,ie in the middle of a large milk field,especially so for cheese.

The Agrarian · Dec 22, 2017

Dale Farm has a stop charge. It's levied per collection, but also per litre. There is a minimum stop charge, but it's capped too at about £260/month EODC, so collections of more than about 4k don't pay any more accordingly. I can't recall the formula in detail, but I'm reliably informed it doesn't cover the cost of transport. All members are charged by the same formula regardless of distance. Milk could be going to one dairy today, but another one in two days time, so distance isn't relevant anyway. Fleets run mostly 29,000 steering triaxles these days, I think the 8 wheelers are long gone. Hi speed pumps are amazing these days. I think it's 60k litres/hr they do.

Alfred · Dec 22, 2017

vantage said:
Distance to the factory is almost irrelevant,within reason.More importantly does the factory have sufficient milk to run efficiently?If so within the locality then great but if not ,as likely it will need to be shipped in. Oh yes ,was the factory built in the right place initially,ie in the middle of a large milk field,especially so for cheese.

Only slight variable on this is that the milk field for the factory isn't guaranteed if they are paying below the competitions milk price.

vantage · Dec 22, 2017

The Agrarian said:
Dale Farm has a stop charge. It's levied per collection, but also per litre. There is a minimum stop charge, but it's capped too at about £260/month EODC, so collections of more than about 4k don't pay any more accordingly. I can't recall the formula in detail, but I'm reliably informed it doesn't cover the cost of transport. All members are charged by the same formula regardless of distance. Milk could be going to one dairy today, but another one in two days time, so distance isn't relevant anyway. Fleets run mostly 29,000 steering triaxles these days, I think the 8 wheelers are long gone. Hi speed pumps are amazing these days. I think it's 60k litres/hr they do.

As in your avatar?

Bald Rick · Dec 22, 2017

vantage said:
Distance to the factory is almost irrelevant,within reason.More importantly does the factory have sufficient milk to run efficiently?If so within the locality then great but if not ,as likely it will need to be shipped in. Oh yes ,was the factory built in the right place initially,ie in the middle of a large milk field,especially so for cheese.

Brought this up with Glanbia as they source >60% of their milk away from NW Wales but of course historically, Anglesey and surrounds had a lot of small producers and there would have been a reasonable pool for their (Glanbia's) needs originally. Massively grown recently of course with new cheese lines etc installed in the last few years.
Don't suppose Government support to locate to an "area of need" was much of a hindrance either

The Agrarian · Dec 22, 2017

vantage said:
As in your avatar?

Farmer Keith · Dec 22, 2017

At our last producer meeting the guy from Arla’s haulage team said it cost 2x what it does in Europe to haul the milk in the uk, assuming most of this was down to our geography but tanker size was playing a part. Not sure if he mentioned a cost or not to be honest.

kiwi pom · Dec 22, 2017

Farmer Keith said:
At our last producer meeting the guy from Arla’s haulage team said it cost 2x what it does in Europe to haul the milk in the uk, assuming most of this was down to our geography but tanker size was playing a part. Not sure if he mentioned a cost or not to be honest.

They'll be a lot of factors that go into it, roads and farms that you cant get an artic and tri axle down would be a major one. There's also the time it takes to load and the pick up routine, I think most tankers have slow pumps in the UK? add to that some runs would have smaller farms so lots of pickups for a load which really eats into your time.
Unloading time is a big one and the single biggest reason for delays when I was on tankers here, if you cant unload you cant go out for the next one.

betweenthelines · Dec 22, 2017

As an ex dairy farmer who worked for one of the major processors for over 10 years, I think this thread is a bit ironic, because;

Instead of staying united, Dairy farmers chose to help the EU kill off the MMB by chasing an extra shekel wherseoever it came from, resulting in 3 or 4 different buyers collecting milk in the same area, rather than the MMB's tankers/contractors doing all the collections in a given area..

The business I worked for, know the cost of collecting from every individual supplier, and supplying every customer (if there ain't a supermarket in the same street, it isn't economical to supply the smaller retailers)

Nine out of ten dairy farmers probably don't know how much a year it costs to run each tractor or even how much they should pay for dairy cows/spend on rearing replacements

kiwi pom · Dec 22, 2017

betweenthelines said:
As an ex dairy farmer who worked for one of the major processors for over 10 years, I think this thread is a bit ironic, because;

Instead of staying united, Dairy farmers chose to help the EU kill off the MMB by chasing an extra shekel wherseoever it came from, resulting in 3 or 4 different buyers collecting milk in the same area, rather than the MMB's tankers/contractors doing all the collections in a given area..

The business I worked for, know the cost of collecting from every individual supplier, and supplying every customer (if there ain't a supermarket in the same street, it isn't economical to supply the smaller retailers)

Nine out of ten dairy farmers probably don't know how much a year it costs to run each tractor or even how much they should pay for dairy cows/spend on rearing replacements

Its the same here farmers decided they didn't want to supply Fonterra so new processors came in, making the same products and paying the supplier very similar money. Now you have Farmers around one factory actually supplying another 100k's away and vice versa, so we would head north empty and meet their tankers coming south empty

This is very common in the transport industry in general though, keeps everyone in a job

FonterraFarmer · Dec 22, 2017

kiwi pom said:
Its the same here farmers decided they didn't want to supply Fonterra so new processors came in, making the same products and paying the supplier very similar money. Now you have Farmers around one factory actually supplying another 100k's away and vice versa, so we would head north empty and meet their tankers coming south empty
This is very common in the transport industry in general though, keeps everyone in a job

The same thing happens with cattle here too...

Sid · Dec 22, 2017

Farmer Keith said:
At our last producer meeting the guy from Arla’s haulage team said it cost 2x what it does in Europe to haul the milk in the uk, assuming most of this was down to our geography but tanker size was playing a part. Not sure if he mentioned a cost or not to be honest.

How often do they collect the milk ? Every third day i believe.

Suckndiesel · Dec 22, 2017

betweenthelines said:
As an ex dairy farmer who worked for one of the major processors for over 10 years, I think this thread is a bit ironic, because;

Instead of staying united, Dairy farmers chose to help the EU kill off the MMB by chasing an extra shekel wherseoever it came from, resulting in 3 or 4 different buyers collecting milk in the same area, rather than the MMB's tankers/contractors doing all the collections in a given area..

Have a neighbour that used to work for years in Bangor dairies which was mmb, apparently it wasn’t the most efficient operation, one of the things he said was lorries would come in with 3/4 loads regularly as it was handier than trying to organise full loads.

The real cost of Milk Haulage ?

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