£1.5m dairy brings milk industry home (From Western Telegraph)

£1.5m dairy brings milk industry home

11:30am Friday 25th November 2011 in Pembrokeshire Farmer

A £1.5m investment has brought milk processing back to its Welsh homeland with the first new dairy to be built in Wales in 75 years.

The dairy on the site of the former Whitland Creamery in Carmarthenshire, hopes to process and bottle up to 10million litres of milk a year from local Welsh farmers, getting from cow to customer within 24 hours.

The venture will put some of Europe’s finest, freshest milk in consumers’ fridges in the most environmentally-friendly way — and the company behind it, Proper Welsh, promises a real old-fashioned creamy taste.

The dairy will also create and safeguard Welsh jobs, and cut the distance milk currently travels from farm to shelf by an average of 360 miles, greatly reducing the product’s carbon ‘hoofprint’.

Proper Welsh director Richard Arnold said: "West Wales’ credentials for producing milk are second to none, given the climate, the quality of the grass and the fact that Welsh cows live outdoors longer than any other cows in the UK. Proper Welsh is all for increasing milk production in Wales, a country that is such a natural milk producer, we just need the facilities to process it, rather than send it on a journey out of the country and back."

Whitland is the original home of Welsh milk, and was at the centre of Europe’s largest milk field in the years after the Second World War before the decline of the industry.

Now Proper Welsh has teamed up with Welsh farmers’ co-operative Calon Wen, which will bottle its own organic milk at the dairy.

Proper Welsh Milk will be available from this week in over 50 Tesco stores throughout Wales, with other independent and local retailers coming on board in the near future.

Mark Grant, senior buyer for Tesco, said: "When Richard first approached us we jumped at the chance to be able work with him because he has so much passion for his product.

"We’re proud to be able to offer our Tesco customers across Wales real Welsh milk that is produced and bottled in Wales."

Proper Welsh is also using Welsh designers and printers for its labels.

The company also launched in North Wales this spring, using an existing dairy at South Caernarfon Creameries.