The Rochdale-based company piloted the in spring 2017, using only free-range milk in every yogurt pot. Since the free-range yoghurt ‘hit the shelves’ at the start of 2018 Lancashire Farm Dairies have seen a boost in sales by one fifth.
Lancashire Farm Dairies agreed to a minimum 150 days of grazing with its farmers. Sixty percent of their farmers signed up in the first year and on average the cows were given 162 days of grazing and by 2018 this has increased to 174 days.
Azhar Zouq, managing director of Lancashire Farm Dairies, said: “At Lancashire Farm we see ourselves as innovators and strive to provide the best product for our customers while maintaining the welfare of our farmers and their cows, and that is why we introduced the grazing guarantee.
“As we paid our farmers a premium to deliver the grazing guarantee, we wanted to understand whether the premium was justified and sustainable for them to produce milk at the new standard. Together we worked through segregation, in terms of haulage and milk is never mixed with non-free range milk, and we were pleased with the results.”
The pilot enabled cows the freedom of roaming between fields to ‘improve their welfare’ and the Rochdale-based company ‘ensured’ farmers received a higher price for their milk.
The free-range yoghurts are available across outlets nationwide, in mango and strawberry variants.