Wiseman and Muller, a bolt from the blue

Nobody expected German yogurt manufacturer and Robert Wiseman to announce a merger this week.

By Howard Walsh

Who wishes they had bought shares in Robert Wiseman Dairies last week ?  More to the point who would have expected it anyway.

The bolt from the blue — German yoghurt maker Muller making a bid for Wiseman — was not the one many people in the dairy industry would have thought of putting their money on.

And it doesn’t  actually reduce the number of big processors as some people maintain would be good for producers and would maybe reduce the pressure on processors to ‘buy’ market share.

As Minister Jim Paice said at this week’s Semex conference, the constant price squabbles along the supply chain have to stop. But we’ll have to wait for that one.

Clearly First Milk is now in a better place – not that it hasn’t been since Mustoe and Allum came to the helm – with a potential £28m to spend from the sale of its 10 per cent stake in Wiseman.

Farmers Guardian business editor, Howard Walsh

Nocton Dairies – planning for a better future?

At long last the planning application for Nocton has been submitted. With fewer than half the original cow numbers, the people behind the development will be hoping this will be enough of a change to enable the permission to be granted with fewer objections.

But almost 4,000 cows is still a lot by anyone’s standards. And there will be little doubt that people in the villages surrounding the proposed development will think there are about 3,500 cows too many.