Press-release

In the past four months, 16 milk cooperatives supported by the Milkiland Group have started their operations in 12 regions of Ukraine. These cooperatives were established as unions of individual dairy farmers aimed to help them in developing of milk production infrastructure.
Such cooperatives will invest into milking equipment, centralized veterinary services, thus providing for higher milk volume and quality. Also, the cooperatives will introduce modern technologies of cows feed and care, aiming at increasing of productivity. In addition, cooperatives can serve as financial aids and training centers for their members.
Successful cooperatives in Milkiland’s milk collection zone are very much welcomed by the company, since increase in milk quality and volume is the key goal for Milkiland in its milk supply strategy.

“Four months ago it was a start-up project. Since then, our partner cooperatives have developed very well. As of October 1, 16 cooperatives in 12 regions of Ukraine have attracted almost 16,000 individual members and accounted for over 19,000 milking cows.
I believe that such progress was possible due to our efforts in educating farmers about the benefits brought by cooperatives. These are not limited to high-quality veterinary services, know-how, feed supplies and access to modern equipment, but also include better milk pricing”, commented Milkiland’s Head of Raw Material Department Viktor Rzhavichev.
“We do expect that more cooperatives will be established and will gather more individual members”, he added.

“By supporting milk cooperatives, we build a long-term partnership to secure and develop Milkiland’s raw milk supplies based on exclusive milk supply contracts.
Now, cooperatives supply more than 15% of our total milk collection in Ukraine, and we plan to further expand their share.
At the same time, individual farmers and households also benefit from being cooperative members. Without the cooperatives they would find it extremely difficult to invest into increasing productivity and improving milk quality.
We hope that encouraging good dairy farming practice through cooperatives will in the medium term allow us to secure larger quantities of high-quality raw milk to produce dairy products with greater attractiveness to the consumer.
Milkiland believes that by promoting and supporting milk cooperatives we contribute not only to the success of our business but also to the sustainable economic and social development of both our regions of operations and Ukraine as a whole”, commented Fredrick Aherne, CEO, Milkiland N.V.