Lakeland Dairies praises high quality of Northern Ireland milk

Lakeland Dairies, one of Ireland's leading dairy businesses, has praised the 'exceptionally high quality" of milk from Northern Ireland farms.

The company, a dairy co-operative, is headquartered Killeshandra,
county Cavan in the Republic of Ireland. The co-operative exports
close to 100 per cent of all its dairy production and has a major
dairy foodservice manufacturing site and Global Logistics Centre at Newtownards in county Down.

The praise for Northern Ireland milk came at the annual Lakeland
Milk Quality Awards from Professor Pat Wall, University College Dublin School of Public Health and Population Science, who said:

"Farmers and the dairy industry on this island have a very positive reputation worldwide.

"The Lakeland Dairies milk quality award winners are exemplary of
the high quality food image that we need to project. It is
essential to remain constantly vigilant and ensure that all requiredtraceability procedures and processes are in place from farm to forkThat will underpin the continuing appeal of our food products on
international markets," he added.

Prof. Wall, an internationally respected expert in food security,
urged dairy farmers to stay as optimistic as possible in view of
currently difficult market conditions. "Milk producers have a deep commitment to dairy farming across many generations. They are
professional and long-term players in the dairy industry. Current
circumstances will improve through a balancing of supply and demand over the coming months. I know that it cannot come soon enough, but it will come."

Lakeland Dairies chairman Alo Duffy also said: "Producing the best quality milk takes immense hard work and commitment all year around.

These winners show the very high standards that exist across our
entire milk supply base and they are wholeheartedly to be
congratulated."

The awards publicly recognise the achievements of Lakeland Dairies
milk suppliers who are committed to efficiency and quality in all
aspects of their milk production and farm management.

Winning a milk quality award is an exceptional achievement where thewinners are identified from a group of over 2,100 farmer milk
suppliers to Lakeland Dairies.

Lakeland chief executive said that global market conditions were
weak and unfortunately this was likely to remain the case for the
next nine months due to a continuing oversupply of milk worldwide.

He also said that the EU must now intervene directly to support the dairy sector. Hanley said the recent dairy and agribusiness joint
venture announcements by Lakeland Dairies and Fane Valley were
indicative of an absolute commitment towards efficiency and
flexibility across all operations.

"As a co-operative, our mission is to support dairy farmers to the
maximum possible. Our initiatives will ensure our ability to
compete forcefully on global markets where we export milk in the
form of value-added dairy foodservice products and food ingredients.
We are very pleased to work with Fane Valley co-operative on this
important agenda.

"We remain confident in the future of dairying for our farmer milk
suppliers. Ou customers worldwide are looking for more of our value-added dairy products and we will meet that demand long into the
future. Market conditions will improve in due course and we intend
that the beneficiary of any such improvements will be our milk
producers."

Lakeland Dairies is a farmer owned co-operative with operations
across 15 counties on a cross border basis. Lakeland collects and
processes over 1 billion litres of locally produced milk each year
into a wide range of value-added dairy foodservice and food
ingredient products.

Pic Cap: NORTHERN IRELAND MILK QUALITY AWARD WINNERS The overall
Lakeland Dairies Northern Ireland Milk Quality Award Winners are
John Smith Snr and John Smith Jnr, Ballyholland, Newry, Co. Down.
Pictured left to right are: Alo Duffy (Chairman, Lakeland Dairies),Celia and John Smith (Snr) with their daughter Olive McConville;
Michael Hanley (CEO, Lakeland Dairies), Professor Pat Wall,
University College Dublin and Paul McConville.