- Location
- North West England
Didn’t Muller recently get a bloody nose from bidding low on a milk contract with Tesco to win the business from Arla?One lesson from the start of the lockdown is just how vulnerable the supermarket supply chain is. If everyone left the plug out of the tank for 24 hrs, the shelves would be empty. But when have farmers ever worked together?
I'd be concerned about this story if I worked for Tesco or was a shareholder, because what they are saying is "We can't run our business as well as Aldi & Lidl do, the only way we can compete is by screwing our suppliers"
As an aside, when Muller bought out Wisemans, staff were told that as the Muller business is so big, Tesco won't be able to dictate terms in future.
As has been suggested on here, Muller and Arla should be big enough, and have other markets, that they can tell Tesco this is one game they won't be playing. Tesco can hardly say, "Well, we'll buy elsewhere" can they!
And before anyone suggests it, neither the consumer or the Govt (think balance of payments) would stomach imported liquid milk.