ilk hauliers needed
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by Karen Miles • The transport of millions of litres of milk is about to go up for grabs as an expanding private milk marketing company gears up for dairy deregulation.
Ireland based Strathroy Milk Marketing needs hauliers in Devon, Cheshire and Scotland to collect milk from farmers' yards for delivery to dairies. It plans to enter the milk market elsewhere in Britain shortly.
Strathroy will provide tank trailers but plans to bring in outside operators for hauling the loads. Hauliers tendering for the Devon work would expect to haul at least 10-12 million litres a year.
Discussions this week between the company and farmers around Chester are also expected to produce an agreement for several million litres. Strathroy has already signed up a haulier for the transport of up to four million litres a year from farmers in Ayrshire.
The company is also offering farmers the option of organising their own haulage: Strathroy would lease its tankers to producers. The company would then make a charge based on volume—information would be collected on the tanker itself with a flowmeter system and downloaded back in Ireland.
Strathroy says at least one farmers group—Devon-based Peninsula Milk Producers—is looking at leasing a tanker from the company (CM 27 Jan-2 Feb).
The deregulation of the milk industry will now start on 1 November, known as vesting day, It was originally planned for 1 April but cancelled several weeks ago by Agriculture Minister Gillian Shephard who was unhappy with the MMB's plans to reorganise the milk haulage market.