Jump to content

Do you buy Shetland milk?


sweetsmucks
 Share

Do you buy Shetland milk?  

135 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you buy Shetland milk?

    • Yes
      82
    • No
      34
    • Sometimes
      21


Recommended Posts

Paulb

It's not just "Yank milk" factory farming is common throughout Europe, was rather shocked to hear a Dane explaining why we saw so few animals outside compared to 10years before (this was 8years ago). As a doctor she was explaining how much better it was for the animals the spend their lives in a sealed environment as they were less likely to catch diseases like "foot and mouth" (which the UK had just experianced) or the bird flu that was killing birds on the southern islands. As the animals were kept disease free, the health benefits to humans were passed on as the animals needed less medications. Dairy, meat, eggs, all food producing animals packed away in huge sealed barns, never seeing natural day light or feeling a natural breeze. Will Borchester Land make this an acceptable thing for the public here, or like the school meals thing drive celebrity chefs to publicly look at the public's apathy towards it's food (sorry Archers reference).

Personally I prefer the flavour from "Happy Animals" or Free Range Organic. I still find it rather disturbing to read how Co-op chicken is fed only on a "vegetarian diet" when ever I make the mistake of reading the label, it just reminds me of how they're raised in sealed barns and fed an unnatural diet. Before anyone starts spouting off about butchers, do you have any idea where and how the chickens sold there are raised? No? Neither do I. So I see no difference in buying smaller breasts in the supermarket to the rather unnaturally large ones I've found in the butchers. I still buy my lamb and beef at the butchers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 79
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Personally I prefer the flavour from "Happy Animals" or Free Range Organic. I still find it rather disturbing to read how Co-op chicken is fed only on a "vegetarian diet" when ever I make the mistake of reading the label, it just reminds me of how they're raised in sealed barns and fed an unnatural diet. Before anyone starts spouting off about butchers, do you have any idea where and how the chickens sold there are raised? No? Neither do I. So I see no difference in buying smaller breasts in the supermarket to the rather unnaturally large ones I've found in the butchers. I still buy my lamb and beef at the butchers.

 

Cage Free here

http://www.onekind.org/take_action/campaigns/go_cage_free/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

crofter thats yank milk.

 

They say this is a worldwide problem...

 

One study compared diet and cancer rates in 42 counties. It showed that milk and cheese consumption are strongly correlated to the incidence of testicular cancer among men ages 20 to 39. Rates were highest in places like Switzerland and Denmark, where cheese is a national food, and lowest in Algeria and other countries where dairy is not so widely consumed.

Part of the problem seems to be milk from modern dairy farms, where cows are milked about 300 days a year. For much of that time, the cows are pregnant. The later in pregnancy a cow is, the more hormones appear in her milk.

 

Milk from a cow in the late stage of pregnancy contains up to 33 times as much of a signature estrogen compound (estrone sulfate) than milk from a non-pregnant cow.

 

In a study of modern milk in Japan, Ganmaa found that it contained 10 times more progesterone, another hormone, than raw milk from Mongolia.

 

You can read more here

 

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/12.07/11-dairy.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Only when the long life milk has run out. I have suffered too many leaky cartons in the past. When I wrote to tell them that, it wasn't going to be changed back then because of the higher cost of getting plastic, non-flat-pack, cartons in on the boat. I suspect that they have lost a lot of business because of that poor decision.

 

I have only just started buying my meat from the butchers, the one opposite Harrys, because my local shop, who sold JW Grays sausages, started to sell them in 12s. I dont have a freezer so that means sausages 3 nights in a row as I live alone. Anyway the butchers ones are far superior, along with their bacon, which doesn't fill the pan with water when it is cooked.

 

I also stopped buying the tomatoes at the local shop as they were watery and flavourless. I now get the Finest range ones from Tesco.

 

The moral of the story is that if it tastes good, lasts well and doesn't cost a fortune than I will be happy to spend my money on it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I have read with interest the comments made. I have worked my life time in the dairy processing industry. Some comments were about, prices, milk going off quickly, foils seals hard to remove and flakey crust around carton neck.

Let's start with price - it costs 35% more to produce milk on the Shetland Islands compared to the UK mainland. This is due to the cost of getting animal feed, fertiliser etc to the islands.

Milk going off quickly - the milk ex-farm on Shetland is of exceptional quality and is pasteurised only. This means it is in it's natural state. Compare this to south milk - their milk pool is drawn from a much wider pooll area and an unkown quantity. To give them a more 'uniform raw material', their milk is passed through a 'micro-filtra process to remove all bacteria etc etc, before being pasteurised. Only large milk processors use this method and hence the very long shelf life. If any milk is stored properly at 4C or less, the shelf life should be 12-14 days.

Foil seals hard to open - there are a few parameters for this system to work correctly, firstly, the cap being applied correctly, secondly, the tightness of the cap on the carton, thirdly,the speed of the carton conveyor. If one of these is not correct, then the foil seal either not sealed properly or it is 'welded' to the carton.

Flakey crust around neck of carton- the is dried milk caused by overfilling.

I hope this explains some of the ins and outs of how milk ends up on your table. If the Shetland Islands' people wish to have a dairy industry on the islands, buying south milk is not the best way to support this small industry. So support your local farmers, local jobs by buying this most natural product.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@ Yifter - But is it not also the case that the dairy has a responsibility to ensure that their Quality Control procedures (if they exist) are up to the same standards as those down south whereby preventative measures are taken to ensure ALL containers are up to the expectations of the customers or are you suggesting that people should put up with problems when the foil seal is not seated properly? It works both ways IMHO.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

couldn't agree more, unlinked! If the bottle is not sealed properly it is no wonder the milk goes off when bacteria enters the milk. Same goes for the crusty bits from overfilling which go sour. Even if the seal is intact, once the container is opened and milk poured and comes into contact with the dried sour residue the rest of the bottle is contaminated and will be off pdq. So is the customer expected to thouroughly cleanse the residue off before even opening the bottle by means of pliers (in my case)? Plus decant the milk into a clean jug of their own as the supplied bottle can't be trusted to do its job? Sorry, but that does not count as a quality product in my book. And it has nothing to do with "laziness", after all the customer pays good money for the milk, so is it too much to expect that the product meets a standard other suppliers have no problems achieving?

 

I periodically buy Shetland milk to see if the quality of their bottling has improved and despite the assurances the public has been given that the "teething" problems are sorted - I still end up with leaky bottles/ sour crusty flaky residue. Plus a pair of pliers in the kitchendrawer to open the damned thing. Is it any wonder that folk opt to buy south milk, if the local dairy can't be bothered to sort out their bottling problems? I agree, the Shetland milk tastes better and a local business should be supported, but this "deal" should work both ways. It is no good blaming the public for not buying the milk and therefore putting farmers out of business if the end product is below standard. It is time the dairy sorted their packaging problems before they loose even more customers.

 

But saying that, Shetland Farm Dairy's range of fresh cream is superb! Wonderful stuff and no problems with the packaging at all. Quality every single time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Milk we get here has similar problems, don't be using the south as an example of quality. I wonder what the through put is of the Shetland Dairy compared to that of this...

 

Originally there were 20 farms supplying the milk and 2 tankers for collecting, this steadily increased over the years to 85 farms and a fleet of 7 collecting tankers, 6 artics and 14 trailers to deliver in excess of 260,000 litres of raw and processed milk daily. The Company then acquired the site at Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire where they moved the processing/bottling side of the business to.
Paynes in Yorkshire.

 

Have any of the complainers written and what was the response?

 

The fact that you have a dairy is great, perhaps if you support the dairy with purchases, feed back and some loyalty, they could improve.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Semi skimmed and skimmed is homogenised which makes freezing it OK. Full fat (especially Jersey) will not do so well. I find it amazing that folk will buy milk from hundreds of miles away when there is a dairy close by. Perhaps a move to OMSCo for the local producers. Scotland is the land of clean water, why not Shetland of good milk?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Semi skimmed and skimmed is homogenised which makes freezing it OK. Full fat (especially Jersey) will not do so well. I find it amazing that folk will buy milk from hundreds of miles away when there is a dairy close by. Perhaps a move to OMSCo for the local producers. Scotland is the land of clean water, why not Shetland of good milk?

 

SP, I have no intention to freeze my Jersey milk which is usually bought as a 'treat'. In fact, I like the stuff so much that when I do buy it, it is gone usually in two days at the most. Besides, my brain is totally convinced that my stomach requires something decent and fatty to counteract the effects of my rabbit food aka Alpen sugar-free brekkie and Jersey Gold Top does the job quite nicely ta very much.:wink:

 

As for buying something from miles away, don't tell me you haven't got some object (not necessarily food) that you could have bought within the UK but for one reason or another, was manufactured elsewhere? If I choose to support south, Channel Islands and Shetland Milk, that is MY perogative and RIGHT.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Much of my edible goods comes from around the area, this I found out I could afford to do when I gave up smoking, and of course, it tastes so much better. There are some items that come from further afield, certain cheeses, pulses and tea. I try to eat seasonal stuff as well, for taste and practicality.

If folk want to buy many of their products off shore as you say, their choice. It still amazes me that milk (which is what we are talking about, and not anything else) travels 100s of miles to be put on a shelf in an area where there is already a dairy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just would like to point out that I actually prefer the taste of Shetland milk and I have no problem with the local milk as such. And yes, local farmers and producers should be supported. But what some people on this thread are saying is that it is the packaging that lets the milk down. If the diary is not improving its production methods and getting to grips with the mentioned problems, than they are the ones letting farmers down, by not marketing the milk properly. And yes, the dairy has had complaints about this. Have they adressed or responded? No!

 

I show my support to local businesses that provide a good service, and there's plenty of them. Some bend over backwards for their customers. And than there are some who seem to think that the fact they are the only one of its kind in the isles and have no local competition should automatically mean the population is obliged to support and keep them in business, even if their service/ product is inferior. Wrong. Loyalty needs to be earned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share


×
×
  • Create New...