Dairy Farmers of Britain
Encyclopedia
Dairy Farmers of Britain (DFoB) was a UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 co-operative
Cooperative
A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...

 milk
Milk
Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many...

 processor that bought milk directly from farmer
Farmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...

s and had several factories producing milk and cheese
Cheese
Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....

 products for sale in various regions throughout the UK. The company was formed as a raw milk trading business (milk broker) in 2002 with the merger of The Milk Group and Zenith Milk.

Dairy Farmers of Britain was the UK's leading dairy farmers' co-operative, marketing almost 1.4 billion litres of milk per year from more than 2,000 member farms.

In 2004, DFoB became the third largest milk processor in the UK, processing over 1.35 billion litres of milk each year into 600 different dairy products, by purchasing Tyneside-based Associated Co-operative Creameries for £75 million from The Co-operative Group
The Co-operative Group
The Co-operative Group Ltd. is a United Kingdom consumer cooperative with a diverse range of business interests. It is co-operatively run and owned by its members. It is the largest organisation of this type in the world, with over 5.5 million members, who all have a say in how the business is...

.
Key products included a branded range of fresh milk, award winning cheeses in the Cadog range, and many other products such as butter, cream and milk powder.

In April 2007, it announced the intention to cease production at its creamery in Whitby
Whitby
Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in the Scarborough borough of North Yorkshire, England. Situated on the east coast of Yorkshire at the mouth of the River Esk, Whitby has a combined maritime, mineral and tourist heritage, and is home to the ruins of Whitby Abbey where Caedmon, the...

, North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...

. The following year it was also announced that production was going to end at two more of its creamery sites, Fole, near Uttoxeter
Uttoxeter
Uttoxeter is a historic market town in Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. The current population is approximately 13,711, though new developments in the town will increase this figure. Uttoxeter lies close to the River Dove and is near the cities of Stoke-on-Trent, Derby and...

 in Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

, and Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...

, putting over 600 people out of work.

Dairy Farmers of Britain went into receivership on June 3rd 2009. Its farmer members lost significant sums of money, but a number have at least managed to find alternative customers for their milk.
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