Dairygold has confirmed that its representatives will not be attending a meeting being organised by a group of milk suppliers this week.
The meeting will be held at 8:00p.m on Wednesday (January 29) at the Firgrove Hotel in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork.
It follows an initial meeting earlier this month which saw hundreds of people in attendance to discuss ongoing concerns among Dairygold milk suppliers.
Niall Twomey, a Dairygold milk supplier, from Minane Bridge in Co. Cork, is among the five milk suppliers who are organising this week’s meeting.
The farmer told Agriland that there are still “a lot of issues and grievances to be ironed out”, adding that the Dairygold annual general meeting (AGM) was “a long way off”.
“We need to communicate back to the people who attended the first meeting. We owe them that much,” he said.
Twomey said that the group of milk suppliers welcomed the decision by management not to apply the proposed 6c/L threshold to the co-op’s loyalty bonus scheme.
However, he said that “an improvement in milk price is our number one priority now”.
“There should be no reason why Dairygold cannot be in Division 1 of the milk price league,” he said.
Dairygold
In a statement issued this afternoon, Dairygold said that as “a member oriented society”, it is “open to engaging with every member”.
“However, only nine days ago, on Sunday, January 19, representatives of Dairygold’s board and management met with the five milk suppliers who are organising Wednesday night’s meeting, where Dairygold sought to clarify all the issues raised by the group.
“Dairygold has also written, this week, to all its milk suppliers to address the issues raised by this group and the issues reported on in the media and cannot see how its attendance at a public meeting would be constructive.”
The statement by Dairygold suggested that such an approach ignores the co-op’s existing governance structures and democratically elected representatives but is also damaging to the society’s operation and reputation.
“As a cooperative society, Dairygold has a very open and democratic governance structure that provides all members with an equal opportunity to raise issues.
“Over the last three weeks Dairygold has had significant engagement with a wide range of Members through that structure.
“It is vital to respect Dairygold’s governance structure and we have asked this group of milk suppliers to raise any issues they might have through that structure also,” the statement added.