Foreign tankers are loading, not delivering, at Wiseman

Robert Wiseman Dairies has dismissed claims it is importing foreign milk to process at its Bridgwater dairy and says foreign milk tankers at the plant are in fact loading cream for export.

A statement from the milk processor said that some dairy farmers had become concerned at reports of continental tankers seen rolling up to the multi-million pound factory in Somerset.

The company said it had also received a letter from Somerset West & Sedgemoor MP Ian Liddell-Grainger demanding Wiseman clarified whether it was importing milk despite being in one of England's biggest milk fields.

But Pete Nicholson, Wiseman's milk procurement director, said: "Our policy is that every single litre of milk we process at our dairies in Britain is sourced from farmers in Britain.

"Far from importing milk, what farmers are seeing at Bridgwater and our other dairies across the country is a major operation to export cream to markets throughout

Europe. That's because strong consumer preference for lower-fat milks results in us having some 90m litres of cream to find markets for each year.

"Only around a quarter of this cream can be sold to our retail customers, with the rest being sent to markets in the UK and Europe, where it is used for production of various products like ready meals and sauces."

08 January 2010