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Assured Dairy Farms Certification Up and Running

20th July 2009

In January 2009, Alastair Harkness from Cookstown became the first United Dairy Farmers member to have his farm certified by NIFCC to the Assured Dairy Farms Standard.

In January 2009, Alastair Harkness from Cookstown became the first United Dairy Farmers member to have his farm certified by NIFCC to the Assured Dairy Farms Standard.

Since then others have followed, and United is now on its way to building a milk pool that will enable it to supply products that carry the Assured Foods Standards’ Red Tractor logo.  This is a key element of United’s strategy to increase sales of Northern Ireland milk and dairy products into the GB market.  Dale Farm, United’s processing subsidiary, has been successfully developing sales of butter, cheese and spreads into the GB market and now has trading relationships with most of the main GB retailers and food service companies.

The Assured Dairy Farms Standard covers animal welfare and good agricultural practice, and its requirements are in line with the current Northern Ireland dairy legislation.

A large proportion of United’s members are already audited by NIFCC under the Beef and Lamb scheme and are therefore already familiar with meeting assurance scheme requirements.  Where possible, NIFCC carry out Dairy Audits and Beef/Lamb Audits at the same time to reduce the number and cost of inspections.

Pictured above, Alistair Harkness receives the first ADF Approved Certificate from Noel Lavery (Operations Manager), also pictured are Harold Hamilton and Brian Hunter (United Dairy Farmers).

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