Isle of Wight dairy farmers this afternoon cleared the dairy shelves in Aldi in Cowes of milk.
It was part of the national trolley challenge, raising awareness of the low prices paid to dairy farmers for their milk – which is now cheaper to buy than bottled water.
You can read the live updates below as well as see our photos.
95% of IW milk bought by national supermarket chains
Prior to the event, one dairy farmer told OnTheWight,
“There is no financial benefit to Island dairy farmers for consumers to buy IW milk (unless the milk is bottled on their own farm where it came from their own milking cows) now since Rew Valley no longer bottle any of milk for us as a group.
“95% of our milk on the Island is bought by national supermarket chains and sent over to the mainland. So buying ‘local milk’ is not this message. This is a widespread national campaign with trolley challenges being done all over the UK.”
Lobby your supermarket
The dairy farmer went on to say,
“British milk is a high quality product, full of nutrients and is devalued and so cheap we may as well give it away.
“The public can help by asking supermarket managers to price it correctly and not use it as a loss leader. Tell the supermarkets you want to pay a fair price and it should not be cheaper than water.”
Photo gallery
We managed to capture some photos during the protest. Click on them to see larger versions.
Live updates
Whilst the protest was taking place, we were able to provide live updates as below.
