The dairy said it was serving notice for a ‘variety of reasons’ including locations, volumes produced and not meeting the standards required
Muller has confirmed it is serving 12 months’ notice to a total of 34 farms across England, Wales and Scotland.
The farmers affected have received their notices.
A spokesperson for the dairy said: “They have been selected for a variety of reasons, including locations and volumes produced which makes continued collection financially unsustainable, or not meeting the quality or high farm standards that our customers increasingly require.
“On the latter point, we have been incentivising farmers to address a range of issues that are important for consumers and customers through programmes like Muller Advantage.
“We fully appreciate that this will be extremely unwelcome news, and our farm supply team will work with those affected.”
Muller Milk Group chairman David Herdman said while they would support the principle of ensuring supplies were up to standard, the board had not been given enough detail to support the notices being served.
“It is not a decision we are party to,” he said.
“We would like to offer any assistance we can with those farms affected to help them source new buyers if that is the route they want to take.
“We have been in this position before with farmers in Lincolnshire and Aberdeenshire and we facilitated those meetings.”
NFU Scotland Milk Committee chair Gary Mitchell said he was concerned by the lack of information which seemed to have been shared with the Muller Milk Group board.
“If the board is to help producers they have got to have the opportunity,” he said.
He said there was concern from his members about Muller’s poor communication with farmers.
“They have got decisions and investments to make and need to be informed.”
He added there was a lot of positivity in the milk market in 2021 but processors were still seeming to be looking to get rid of producers.