New symbol for Irish Milk...an Udder waste of money?

I just bought a litre of milk for use with the brekkie. Its an Avonmore (I have no connection with them) carton and has two green-and-white logos "I love Irish food" and "The National Dairy Council Farmed in the Republic of Ireland".

In the same chiller cabinet were 2 litre containers from Thurles Creamry, Avonmore and Donegal Dream (?), none of which had the logos.

This prompts a few questions -

  • Are the separate logos indicative of separate initiatives and could savings in cost and confusion be achieved by combining them?
  • If a carton has one logo but not the other, what does this mean?
  • If a carton has neither of the logos what does this mean?
  • If a milk processor has logos on some containers but not on others, does this mean it uses different production lines to avoid cross-contamination or is this just another "smoke and mirrors" job?
  • How come The National Dairy Council doesn't know the name of the country it purports to represent? (the country is called "Ireland" not "The Republic of Ireland")
  • What's the status of the "I love Irish food" logo, given that it is almost identical to one used to promote food produced in an English county and the one used to promote tourism in Belfast?
 
Complainer said:
There used to be an active market in buying or leasing quotas between farmers - does this not happen anymore?.
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There is a fixed total amount of quota in the ROI market. If one farmer goes out of business, other farmers can certainly buy or lease his milk quota, but the industry cannot scale up much by this. The NI farmers can buy in quota from the rest of the UK, where dairy farms have been going out of business at a steady rate for years and where quota is far more readily available as a result. So, in liquid milk supply , they have a competitive advantage handed to them by a rigged market.

Complainer said:
Perhaps the ROI farmers shouldn't have been in such of a rush to float off the co-ops in the 80's to make a quick buck. If they had retained control of the distribution channel, they might be able to dictate terms (not that the consumer would benefit of course).
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Perhaps. I doubt it; Pricing power rests mainly with the large retail multiples and I don't think any processor(s), whether farmer-owned or not, have been able to alter this. Perhaps the story would be different if all Irish farmers had united in a single Co-Op, as has happened in some other countries; Mind you this still would not alter the fact that our industry cannot expand, while that in NI can.
 
don't assume since one size is Irish the udder is too!

Aldi now receive their 1 litre milk from Arrabawn Dairies, which is great for us as we shop there and they also do a 'Super milk' range. But we went there the other day and all of their Super milk was sold out, so we grabbed some 2 litre plastic cartons instead of the 1 litre. As we queued I noticed the dairy council Rep Ireland green symbol was not on the container, and so looked at the code, NI !! I went back with the milk and looked at the 1 litre cartons, IE symbol and the green label. So I got that one instead.

Anyway it has taught me, never assume...now I see the subtlety in the article...Arrabawn Dairies in County Galway will now supply all 75 Irish Aldi Stores with its new Cowbelle Irish Milk one litre range

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wishbone said:
Anyway it has taught me, never assume...now I see the subtlety in the article...Arrabawn Dairies in County Galway will now supply all 75 Irish Aldi Stores with its new Cowbelle Irish Milk one litre range

[broken link removed]
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Awful pity they don't do skimmed milk. Low-fat is still a bit too much fat for me.
 
I did a quick experiment in Tesco last night.

I checked several packs of ham.

Denny
Roscrea
Galtee
Shaws

All were processed / packed (?) in plant no 501, which is:


501​
Duffy Meats Ltd​
Shillelagh​
Wicklow​
I found the name of the plant from a DAFF website.


All are Kerry Group brands.

All have different addresses on the back, e.g.

Shaws, Consumer Services, Limerick
etc., etc.

but these are just marketing addresses.

The consumer thinks there is choice, but all 4 brands are made by Kerry Group in one plant in Wicklow.
 
I'm a packaging designer, and from my point of view,

firstly a good logo/mark to make sure people know it is irish milk is a good idea.. Can only help some people pay that little extra.. very little cost implications... so that should not be an issue.

Love Irish Food is a nice mark but does look like other well know logos.. problem with this is you have to pay to use up €1000 - €5000 - upwards..

Guaranteed Irish mark (never put this on your pack it looks really bad and if you ask most people they have no idea what it is)

there are several other marks out there for irish meat ect..

they wont combine them as they are all different agency's etc...

best thing we could do is design a new identity for buying irish (all produce not just food so everyone understands it) and you could make it nearly free to use for irish produce (small say a small reg fee of €50 to cover costs per company)


let me know if you want one... ;-)
 
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