Granarolo and Lactalis have issued a joint communiqué drawing the attention of the Italian government to “the serious concern about the galloping inflation that has been affecting the Italian agri-food industry, and the dairy sector in particular, for the past 12 months”. The public authorities must intervene, they say, “to avert even more disastrous consequences for the thousands of companies in the supply chain”.
Inflation, they explain, has “overcome the market’s protective mechanisms and is having a double-digit impact on almost all the cost factors that make up the dairy supply chain. Feed (exacerbated by the drought, which is reducing both crops and milk production), which has necessitated a nearly 50% increase in the price of milk to farmers; packaging (paper and plastic have been rising steadily for months); and additional production components used in the dairy industry. “However, the biggest concern today is the cost of energy, which has risen so much in recent weeks that it is difficult to pass on to the market, and this at a difficult economic time for Italian families.”
“Although both companies have independently absorbed inflation of 25 to 30 per cent,” the joint statement said, “the price of milk for consumers has risen to €1.75/1.80 per litre (Nielsen data) since the spring and could continue to rise until December 2022. “It is unthinkable that a staple of the Italian diet should be so deprived as to limit its availability for consumption”.
