Is the grass too bad or did Jumbo joke about milk shortage? ‘This is no good at all’

Delivery problems, too little precipitation or broken trucks: Jumbo gives a different explanation for the empty milk display cases in the various stores. Bart Kemp, foreman of the action group Agractie, sees that the problem is something completely different. “The dairy processor wants to pass on the increased costs and Jumbo did not agree. That is why the processor has put in place a temporary supply stop.”

,,The local shops adapt a sleeve, but of course that makes no sense,” says Kemp. “They don’t want to tell the real reason because they are ashamed of it, but we have heard that this is the issue. There is more than enough milk available, but the costs have simply risen enormously due to global increases, we all notice that in our wallets, so do the farmers.”

“The delivery problems of various dairy products have now been solved”, is all Suzanne van der Vaart wants to say on behalf of Jumbo. “A limited number of our stores have had to deal with this.” According to Van der Vaart, a number of Jumbo stores have drawn up communication themselves to inform customers. “This has led to the different reporting. One store has given it a very special twist by reporting that there was not enough milk due to a lack of precipitation. This is incorrect.”

“I think that Jumbo has not communicated sufficiently to its supermarkets what is going on,” says retail expert Paul Moers. believe that Jumbo is screwing things up. This is not good for Jumbo’s image and it is also a bad thing.”

“The farmers can’t do anything about this, because all prices have gone up,” says Moers. “It’s all nice and nice, but it must also remain realistic for them. The excuses that are made up for this make no sense and the is also very painful, in this way they are adding fuel to the fire. This is communicated very badly, as far as I am concerned they win the prize for clumsiness of the month.”

Rik Lagendijk, owner of dairy farm Wieks Scharrelmelk, can confirm that there is no shortage of milk. ,,It has been dry in recent weeks, but that has no influence yet. The grass that is there now has grown with sufficient moisture. So the grass is not really an obstacle yet.”

“A cow will only give milk when it has given birth to calves,” explains Lagendijk. “And we make sure that they have enough and good food. The quality of the grass does depend on how much milk they give, but the quality is always excellent in the spring. In the summer there is a chance that the quality will deteriorate, but then there are still plenty of options to compensate for this with concentrates or maize. It will only become more difficult to obtain high-quality feed when it has been dry for a number of years, but that is absolutely not an issue now.”

Kristel van der Aa, founder of the Search de Boer platform, which provides an overview of farms, notices that consumers are now looking for other ways to obtain their milk. “Jumbo indicates that they have no milk, but they leave it up to the consumer to solve this. Consumers often find this difficult, because they do not know where to turn. So if no one tells them, we’ll stay in that circle and we’ll never be able to buy locally from the farmer. It is important that the consumer goes to the farmer now, otherwise we will soon be left with so much milk and that is just a waste of that milk, because it does not have a very long shelf life.”

“All conditions in the world affect our production costs, so they have risen enormously,” says Lagendijk. ,,The demand for milk has also increased, production is comparable to other years. So the price of dairy goes up. The extra costs we now incur must be reflected in the products we make, which is currently being negotiated. There has to be a different price than they are used to, so the shelves are empty for a while. But if nothing is compensated, we will of course not continue to exist.”

Lagendijk calls the situation how Jumbo describes it ‘deception’. “The supermarkets and purchasing organizations are not prepared to pay fair prices. In the Netherlands, all supermarkets stunt with the lowest prices, but nobody says that they give the farmer a fair price or that they have sustainable products, because that’s not how you score. Everything is required of us, but they are not willing to pay extra for it. We are already working a lot of hours for little money and that in itself is not a bad thing, but in the long run the stretch will also be gone.”

Or Facebook responds Ben Lichtenberg with the text: ‘Hello Jumbo. Hello jumbo! You sell your customers lies.’ He explains that Jumbo refuses to pay a cost-effective price to the dairies. “Jumbo takes advantage of the customer’s ignorance.”

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