Arla Foods adopts ‘contingency’ plan to negate impact of Covid-19

The dairy co-operative estimated that if 13 per cent of milk tanker collection drivers were off sick as a result of coronavirus, the company would struggle to fulfil its obligations to collect milk from its 2,400 farmer owners.

To avoid this potential decline in drivers, the processor trained 19 dairy farmers and 10 members of its agriculture team to provide a ‘back-up’ option for its logistics team if needed, which involved video and socially distanced training with tankers.

Arla’s agriculture director Graham Wilkinson said: “Arla’s farmers were asking what they could do to help the business and when we asked the elected farmers to help us with this challenge, there was no shortage of volunteers.

“Should there be a shortage in tanker drivers therefore, Arla would be able to use drivers from outside the industry with the newly trained farmers available to follow the tanker by car and manage the milk collection and quality checking aspects at farms in their region.”