Higher demand in retail stores will have offset some of this, but the question is how much?
There is little data available on volumes of milk going into food service. However, based on milk volumes directed to the liquid market, and what is typically sold at retail in GB, we can estimate weekly volumes available to the non-retail sector are around 9.6m litres.
After accounting for the milk which is used in hospitals, prisons and schools[i], we estimate that around 8m litres of milk is sold to foodservice outlets per week.
Longer term, it is left to be seen if there will be a market for this milk once consumers adapt to their new circumstances, and return to more ‘normal’ buying behaviour.
[i] we estimate this to be in the region of 10-15% of non-retail volumes.
