An appeal was sent out to islanders and businesses in summer 2022 resulting in about 1,000 crates being returned.

However, many of them had been damaged and were therefore unusable.

The dairy said it was now nearly 3,000 milk crates short, which it said made planning weekend and bank holiday production “extremely challenging”.

Dave Domaille, production manager at Guernsey Dairy, said the shortage also affected the distribution chain.

He said: “The situation has reached a point where we are now insisting that our customers return the empty crates supplied to them before we can fulfil their next order.

“This is obviously impacting their businesses too as many retail outlets use the crates to store milk.

“We simply don’t have the surplus stock to operate differently.

“This is an ongoing issue and is impacting the dairy operationally and financially.”

Each crate costs the dairy about £15 to replace – a cost which it said had gone up over the past 12 months.

“Each milk crate makes thousands of trips to and from shops with some lasting more than 20 years,” said Mr Domaille.

“They are extremely strong and durable when allowed to do their job and are not removed from the milk delivery system for other purposes.”

Guernsey Dairy said islanders could return crates by leaving them inside the dairy’s main gate.