Cost of Production

Hello everyone, it's Friday the 6th November and welcome to episode 314 of the kite podcast with me, 11th and me, Ben Eagle. Yes, it's good to be back with you after a few weeks away, and my goodness has a lot been happening in that time. We're therefore putting the spotlight on cost of production today with our guest Catherine Rowland, who is a senior consultant with kite. We're also joined by podcast producer Becky Ray and everybody's favourite dairy market analyst Chris Walkland. Chris, over to you for the milk market report. Where are you this week? Yeah, well, what a week this has been. I think we've seen it all. It's been obviously that expose by animal justice project whose aim is to end the use of animals in agriculture and there was a damning article in the mail on Sunday last week. If you're not up to speed, hidden cameras were planted on 16 Arla farms for a year to September 2026. Arla is obviously working through all of the implications of that. What I'd say is beware these activists could target you next. We've also got that price cut to discuss. So I'm bringing you my report from outside Freshway's new factory in Birmingham. Firm is certainly the talk of the town for not exactly the right reasons after its seven-penth cut. Boardy Sembra, and this comes two months after it was the talk of the town for the right reasons when it moved up six p. I think we'll be talking more about this later and for a long time into the future too, frankly, and on a positive, on a massive positive, actually this morning has seen a new study released. It's splashed all over the media about how much better our milk is compared to those rubbish plant-based not milks. You're not allowed to call them milks. So yes, look out for that study. It's really quite positive. Anyway, to the market into milk volumes first and last week's AHDB data for GB had volumes 5% down on the same week last year. I'm not sure we've ever been 5% down. More significantly, perhaps, we're now within 1% of the three-year average. So we're dropping pretty quickly back to normal. Elsewhere in Germany, milk volumes fell last week by another 0.6% compared to the previous week and they're still tracking lower than the same week last year, although not by much or enough yet. In France, the differential is widened to 2.6%, so 2.6% down on last year. So that really is encouraging. And not only on volumes down fat and protein levels there dropped 2. It was GDT week this week and we've had a pretty good result overall. The index increased by 3%, which is the biggest increase since March. And that's on top of a 2.5% increase at the previous auction. So that's showing some positivity in percentage terms. Cheddar took the headline with a near 9% increase, but ignore that. The increase comes from a low's not seen since late 2020. So the bounce only takes it from a terrible price to a crap one. More cheerly, Mozzarella posted a decent 5.7% increase to top $4,100 with Arla's selling for the equivalent of 3650 euros. That's up to 100 euros and it's had an immediate effect on the market. Mozzarella had been dropping recently, so this has done it the world of good. Powder's fed pretty well, whole milk powder up 6%, skim 3%, to cross over $4,100 and that's the highest since June 2022. In contrast though, Butter took another pounding and was down 4.7% the lowest since January 2023. And in milk price terms, I've written the commodities convert to about 34 pence and our producers normally pay 3 to 4 pence premium. Dutch butter increased by 30 euros this week to 3 to 750 euros and still a 5 year low traders put their spot prices about 3 to 650 euros though and UK traders equoting 3,200 sterling and cream well that's up a bit it's in the low to mid 140's a kilogram range now so as I say up a bit but not by much or enough. Skin powder continues to rise though with 19 weeks now without a price drop. Food grade a Dutch food grade skim milk powder rose another 20 euros this week to exceed 3,700 euros for the first time since mid 2022. On the futures well Butter posted a couple of positive weeks when we were away perhaps we should go way more often but this week now we're back at lost ground and fell by 125 euros to an average of just under 4,100 euros but in contrast skim futures they increased by nearly 200 euros taking the price to 3,770 euros. So the milk price I'm getting from butter and skim is still around 30 to 31s after costs with butters decline being compensated by skims ascent. Cheese prices have been slow to move in Europe in recent weeks but as I said Moxarella normally the quickest off the blocks that jumped from 3,450 euros to 3,600 euros last week and the GDT helped propel it to as high as 3,750 euros this week. In the UK one trade as best price was just under 3,300 sterling so it looks as if Mox has recovered the losses of recent weeks. Chad is stable at about 3,300 here and supported by low stocks but it's still weaker in Europe equivalent to about 3,200 and as I said and keep saying unless prices rise during November and December and I don't think they will and farmgate milk prices are likely to come under pressure in January. At the moment I think the balance is tipped more in favour of price drops, modest price drops than holds or increases but we'll see. All of that said traders are some traders are reporting stronger buying interest and activity for quarter one and there is still as I said that talk of stocks not being as plentiful as buyers believe so a lot can change in two months and spot trading is around 40p in the UK so at the top end of where milk prices are at the moment. So there you are now it's on to our guest to talk about those ever rising seemingly ever rising costs of production before coming back to some of the issues raised here I think so taking away folks. Thank you Chris. A Katherine welcome back to the show can you introduce yourself to the listeners please. Thanks Will. For most of you who are regular listeners to the podcast I was last back on the podcast in June discussing costs of production just as a full impact of rising fuel costs was beginning to be felt on farm. I've been with Kite for nearly 18 months working as a senior consultant alongside Becky in the corporate team. So over with the course of my career I've spent nearly 25 years analysing agricultural markets and in particular dairy costs of production. I was just looking back on some figures the other day and when I first started in the industry, milk prices were around 18 pence per liter with milk potas still in place and feed costs were approximately all pence per liter. So since then the dairy industry has undergone significant change but if there's one where the best describes costs of production recently and that's volatility. What was the price when you started out Chris? There was still plenty of shillings and puddles. Thank you very much. With another person. Yeah, well, it was a serious question. I can't remember. It's actually a long time ago now. It's actually John Allen who gets the age goes, Chris take the age call. Yeah, I don't like the way it's so long. Okay. Yeah, those costs then, Catherine, when it comes to feed fuel and firt, what are current prices looking like and how has this changed since this time last year? Yeah, looking at the key inputs, which are feed fuel and fertilizer, they continue to be the biggest drivers of farm costs. Feed costs were very low last year compared to the five year average with milk price to feed price ratios over 1.5 through the last winter. Although purchase feed costs reduced slightly in the final 2025-26 accounts, we're forecasting them to increase again during the 2026-27 period as drought conditions reduced forage availability and stronger demand for purchase feed increase pressure on the markets. So farms that have not secured feed stocks in advance may be particularly exposed over the winter. So fertilizer prices have also strengthened much of the fertilizer used during the 2026 period was purchased before recent prices increases took effect, which helped limit the impact on last year's accounts. However, we are expecting most of the higher prices to feed through into the 2027 application season, resulting in increased forage cost as a result. But one thing that still remains a key concern is fuel costs, although prices have eased slightly from recent peaks, ongoing geopolitical uncertainty and disruption to global energy and shipping markets mean fuel costs remain above historical averages and they continue to influence contract charges, haulage, machinery and wider farm operating costs. When you combine feed, fertilizer and fuel related expenditure, they account for close to 40% of the average dairy farm cost of production, which is why any movements in these markets have such a significant impact on profitability and cash flow. Yeah, cash flow is, yeah, it feels tight for all of us, doesn't it? How is that looking for the average dairy farm at the moment? Yeah, so that's a really good question and it's having a significant impact on cash flows although the extent varies, farm to farm, depending on milk price, production performance and the individual farm's cost structure, so higher feed, fertilizer and fuel costs all require additional working capital, increasingly amount of cash tied up in day-to-day operations. At the same time, many businesses are facing higher machinery, finance and overhead costs, which further squeeze margins. So our latest forecast suggests that many businesses are moving into a much more challenging cash flow environment during the 2026-27 period. So we're forecasting an average breakeven milk price of around 41.5 pence per liter. So as a result, many producers will be experienced periods of negative cash flow if they haven't been already, unless costs can be controlled or milk prices improve, even if commodity and energy markets stabilize is usually a lag between lower prices feed-through into farm inputs. So farmers are likely to fill the impact for some time yet, but businesses with a clear understanding of their cost of production, cash flow and working capital requirements will be better placed to navigate the current period of volatility. The sort of two parts here isn't that there's that initial part of, you know, the money coming in versus the money going out, everyone monthly is negative and has exhausted some of those cash flow, some of those cash, that cumulative cash that they built took through a breter price period, but there's almost that sort of rise of informal credit that's been utilised on farm so with suppliers and you know, feed bills may be going from a month or two months or two and a half, three or however many months or some of the purchasing decisions that are timed that mean that you get extra credit length and it's some of that that's really hard to capture isn't it Catherine? Yeah. But has a longer term impact because you still have to recover from that at some point, even when you months like cash flow comes positive? Looking back on last financial year, Catherine, you finalised the cost of production data for that year, which means we can see the true picture of what happens and can you just take us through the numbers and what they tell us? Yes, we've been writing our quarterly cost of production report which is due out shortly and we've now rebased our forecast for the year ending March 27 so we're currently working on predictions for the year end March 2028 so that'd be interesting to see where all the feed fuel and fertiliser costs feed through into costs going forward. But the day it shows that the average breakeven milk price and we tend to talk about breakeven milk price because that takes into account variable costs and overheads but also takes into account any non-dairy milk income such as stock sales, BPS payments and other non-milking come. But what we've seen is that the breakeven milk price increased by 1.5% from 39.4 per litre in March 25 to 39.9 so that's a relatively modest increase and it was lower than we had originally forecasted earlier in the year so a key reason for that was the stronger milk production and milk constituents which have helped dilute overhead costs over more litres so feed costs came in lower than forecast while stronger coal cow and calf values provided additional non-milking come and improved overall business performance accordingly for that period. However it's important to recognise that these figures largely reflect conditions before many of recent increases in feed fertiliser and fuel costs took full effect so since March 26 we've seen drought conditions cost most of the UK lower milk volumes but but still high butter fats and renewed inflationary pressures emerging across the sector so as a result while the actual figures for 25 26 were relatively stable the outlook for 26 27 is much more challenging with the average breakeven milk price forecast to rise to a 41.5 per litre and just digging into some specifics can you just maybe tell us where where specifically costs were rising perhaps any costs going down? There were some costs going down and some of that was diluted by the extra litres I mean there's always a range within these figures so we're looking at the average which for the whole of the UK there's been very different scenarios between various different regions particularly linked to drought conditions but one of the things that we did see a slight reduction in was feed costs falling from just over 14 pence per litre to 12.8 so it's a slight reduction but it's expected to rise by 5% in this financial year but this also includes young stock feed too within those figures. So labour costs per litre also reduced as higher production allowed businesses to spread those costs over more litres even though farms saw increases in national living wage and changes to employer national insurance contributions the wider challenge of recruiting and retaining skilled staff in rural areas so many farms are are now actively trying to lower expenditure by deferring maintenance delaying capital projects and reducing discretionary spending where possible which these actions helped offset some of the inflationary pressures elsewhere in the short term however many of those savings involve expenditure being postponed rather than avoiding completion. So they may reappear in future years, and it's not sustainable to hold them off too long depending on what they are. There's a bit of complexity here, isn't there? Because people will listen to this and think, "Well, my cost didn't go down." And in absolute terms, in nearly all cases, they didn't. But we had such good milk volumes that contributed to that end-of-financial year. So the bit that I always have to do when I'm talking about this is summer 2025. April and that record milky year through to March 2026. So you've sort of got your cash to your mind back to Summers to start with. And then, so you think about your absolute cost, which certainly don't feel like they're going down on farm. On, you know, when we talk about cost of production, we talk on a Pence-Polita basis. And a lot, part of what has happened, which is making the story quite milky. Catherine, isn't it for you to look at going forward, is that you diluted out a lot of that baked in overhead cost risers. You know, you wash out quite a lot of those costs, but you dilute quite a lot of those costs by the actual litres. So in real terms, I don't suspect people feel like costs are going down on farm. Yeah. I mean, it's important to note that our figures are based on energy corrected milk. So the fact that butterflies were really strong as well had a big impact as well. So that standardises the milk volumes to 4% butter fat and 3.3% protein. And allows farms with different milk positions to be kept compared on a like for like basis. And provides more acumen and assessment of production efficiency. That's where our figures might differ from some of the others, where they're just quoting Pence-Polita. And it's really good point because the milk composition has been so high. You know, when we look at that Catherine, it's been outside the five year range for the whole of 2025. And to this point, calendar year 25. And to this point, calendar year 26, hasn't it? Yeah. And Catherine, you've already covered sort of fuel feed to a certain extent. I mean, anything else in particular to say about that period? Just a few, putting a few figures on it, really. So fertiliser within our report is captured within 4-HVB costs. So we're forecasting that to be around 3.2 Pence-Polita. So we're anticipating that there are a few receding costs and with seed costs potentially being higher. That's going to feed through into the figures. Fuel is slightly harder to isolate because it feeds into so many other areas, such as contracting forage production, machinery running costs, forage and wider farm operations. Rather than appearing as one individual line, although there are direct fuel costs. But what we've seen is that, you know, feed fuel and fertiliser related costs account for somewhere between 18 to 20 Pence-Polita of total cost production. So that's roughly 40% of dairy farm costs, which remain directly exposed to movements in those markets. Catherine, Chris referenced milk volumes in his intro. What's the impact of changing milk volume generally when it comes to cost of production? Within the report that we've done, that will feed through into milk volumes. With this, we've taken into account artifacts as well, so corrected it on an ECM basis. So we are predicting that milk volumes to the march here end, 20 cents, and are going to be around 1.5% down on previous year. The year before we were up 4.7%. I know the AHDB are quoting a reduction of 2.2% over the winter months, but that's purely milk volume, not energy corrected. So we've gone for 1.5% in our predictions. Chris, have you got any thoughts on that? I haven't really looked forward in terms of where I think volumes are going to be to the detail that Catherine would have done. Looking back though, you know, if you take the last 50 days, the milk volumes over the last 50 days, we were 3.1% down on last year. We're now 4.6% down. If you skip last year's exceptional volumes and you look at the three-year average, 50 days average milk, 3.4% up for GB, now 0.5% up. So you can see the slide that there's been over the last 50 days, and we could find over the next 50 days, it's actually even worse than AHDB and Catherine are predicting. I mean a lot of that would depend on milk prices, and whether there's a shift in milk prices, that might mean that people are feeding less purchase feed, because milk prices, feed price ratio is not as it should be. Exactly. The Iran conflict started on the 20th of February, Catherine, so in your data set, the impact will only show until the end of March. But what was the impact of that last financial year, and how significant were those cost increases in terms of the impact on the year as a whole? Well, particularly because feed is always bought in advance, fertilizer for that period was bought in advance as well. So feed and fertilizer had very little impact. One thing that it did impact on was fuel, and because of the timing of that, a lot of people weren't doing. It was still quite early to do spring operations, so it didn't really have that much of an impact. We saw a slight increase, but not significantly compared to others, but what we are going to see that going forward, back when I spoke in June on the podcast, I was saying that a couple of months of high prices and then fuel costs will go back to normal, but there is always a lag, and fuel prices don't look like they're coming down. I mean, that they have come down, I mean, it depends what Donald Trump's going to do next, but it's very difficult to predict going forward. What fuel costs, but I think what I can be certain is it's going to be more volatility. I'm so sad you can't be more certain about what Donald Trump's going to do with Catherine. Yeah, yeah, it's going to make America great again. The midterms show how popular it is, and how everything's working to a great plan, and how dare you be cynical of such a genius. Yeah, absolutely. So Catherine, we've seen some pretty exceptional beef markets recently. How significant have non-dairy income streams been for dairy farms, so including beef within that, I suppose? They've been incredibly important, particularly from a cash flow point of view. One of the reasons that the average breakeven milk price only reached 39.9 pence for the period March 26, rather than moving over 40 pence with the strength of cow and calf values. So strong beef prices have provided a valuable source of additional income at a time when margins for milk production have been tightening. And for many businesses, stronger livestockings come, have helped offset rising production costs and supported cash flow. So without those beef-lated income streams, the financial pushes and for many dairy farms would have been very worse. And zooming ahead to today, where's the average breakeven milk price for farmers today? So a lot of that will depend on milk volumes and what milk prices will do. But based on our latest cost of production analysis, we're forecasting an average breakeven milk price of around 41.5 for the year ending March 27. However, that is an average across the whole of the benchmark group, and there remains a huge variation between businesses. So some of the most efficient producers can operate around 45 pence per liter, while others require significantly more. Chris, just turning to the fresh ways news of the 7 pence cut in milk price, obviously sound a bit of a shock wave through the industry. How significant will that be for fresh ways farmers? Oh, it's going to be massive, isn't it? It's an absolute hammer blow. I think the big question is, how long it will be? stays down at 31p. If it's one month and then they increase in January, then it's a different kettle of fish too, if it's 31p and it stays for quarter one. I don't tend to look normally at single month price increases or decreases because I think you need to take a longer term view over three and six and a year, but even if you take the last three months, fresh ways, and other liquid processes have been in the bottom third of the table. I think what we're seeing now is the liquid processes are falling behind and the cheese makers are coming to the top of the table. But the implications of this seven pence cut down to 31 depends on how long it's going to go on for. You can't help but not look when it's so substantial. Can you Chris? No, I think the psychological damage from seven pence in one month is huge, especially as costs are going up as cattle in, cafferin as outlined. It's just a hammer blow and there's no getting away from that. Confidence was increasing on the back of the six p. You know, increased six p in October. Confidence was coming back into the fresh ways that farmers because they were in touching distance of actually making some money. Now that's just evaporated. I was having the conversation with the team, actually the market shifted and you and I have discussed it Chris. It's changed quite dramatically to Catherine's volatility comment. You know, we've seen and I'll talk about cream in a minute, but we've seen a really detached cream market for quite a long time. And this milk composition piece now is starting to, or it feels like it's starting to play into it and you sort of are working through some numbers with a client last week. And when you start to look at some of the dynamics at play, you know, we started to see a little bit of positivity on a GB basis and possibly where the fresh ways lifts came from in terms of declining liquid milk volumes during the summer. Yes, drought impacted. And then actually GDT and Sternex, oh, GDT looked pretty benign and has been. Sternex looked like it had a, it looked like we were swirling around at the bottom, didn't it, with some very tiny steps upwards, probably eight weeks ago. And then actually the over the last eight weeks we've got lost, I think, 800 euros out of butter futures. Well, that, you know, over the last eight weeks, that was been compensated in some respect on Sternex through SMP, which you mentioned in your intro. So to actually Sternex didn't look like it was moving that dramatically until you dug into the numbers behind it. And the fat values now are really, really challenged. And to your point about the liquid process, as that, you know, the cream in particular is such a, not such a significant contributor, but it is the, it is the cream on the top of the milk, isn't it? You know, it's been used to sort of bolster and support the whole liquid milk price. And as cream has detached in value, which has a spectre is due to butter stocks. There's not a huge amount of incentive to turn that excess cream into more butter to storage would be my gotten stinked. And I think, you know, if a liquid processor sells liquid milk to customers and and says, or things right, or get the profit on the cream, and there is no profit on the cream, then, you know, basically they're running at a loss. And you know, there are question marks over the prices that fresh ways have done deals with, with customers. I don't know what they are. I don't know whether that torque has got, is valid or not. But the fat remains, you know, seven pent cup suggests that the middle ground has no margin in it. whatsoever on on a liquid milk basis. And the only profit is on the cream. And at the moment, there is no profit. And I think the slight difference between the liquid and the cheese market is that a new, we discussed it earlier in the year and you highlighted it. I think I'm one of the podcasts about the shift of the cheese makers with some of that excessive milk that we saw last year into curds and shipping. Yeah. Curd cheese curds rather than turning it into cheddar, which obviously comes a quite substantially longer. So I think there's a, there's a, you know, fat values are really, really challenged, whether that's fat in cheese or fat in butter. I think the difference between the two or, you know, my good instinct, the difference between the two is actually, we've built a lot of stock of butter and possibly not quite as much as of cheese or cheddar because we were still shifting curds reasonably economically early in the year. And that's why you've seen the monster price move quicker as well. Yeah. But bearing in mind everything that the two of you have just discussed, Chris, is the fresh raised price justified in the current market condition in your view? Well, the market, I don't think the market for a middle ground liquid processor is as low as 31p. Let's take that. So I don't think it is justified. For those drying milk with a huge costs of actually the energy to dry it may be so. You know, not for those bottling, even though HDPE, I either polybottle costs have gone up. So the market isn't at 31p. However, it also hasn't been at 38p, which freshways were paying in October and November. Might be for cheese with the way price, but and it might be for muller and arla on their liquid because they're on trackers with their customers with the retail customers. So their diesel costs, their packaging costs are on trackers and they go up or down with the market. In the middle ground, they don't operate on trackers from from what I know. So over the last two months, freshways has been paying 38p. I also think some have been getting a little bit more on a on a B price because the spot milk has been higher. Pains has been on effectively 35 and a half p because its headline price was 37 and a half, but it takes off 2p for haulage. Mullers was 36 and a half effectively because it has a B price deduction for ingredients and all of these prices, freshways 38, mullers 37 and a half headline, were set at 175 cream price. Then it dropped to 135. So the cream income has probably dropped 2 or 3p since these headline prices were announced. So all in all, I think freshways has probably paid too much in October, a couple of pens too much in October, three pens too much in November. So 38 minus 5 is 33, not 31. Therefore, in my mind, this 31p cannot stick around for very long. If it's here for two months, I think there's going to be real anger now, but I just think there's going to be object fury if it sticks around for two months. Then everybody will hurt. Everybody will lose in the end if it doesn't pick up soon. At the moment, the farmers are hurting and the farmers are losing, but then the milk to freshways will just dry up and then freshways will start to lose and then their customers will start to lose. So it's 31p just to my mind cannot be around for long. Would you predict it will go up next month then? Depends what happens to cream. That's a hard call because creams notoriously difficult over Christmas. You know, you go cream to cream price will go up over Christmas as there's two or three Points isn't there in the year where cream essentially has its own value beyond the conversion cost We looked at this earlier in the year. Yeah, but it can do and then you get to the bank holidays over Christmas in it has no value at all Yeah, so any early gains in December can be wiped out because it's absolutely no value on the bank holidays afterwards Right, but but that's on a day-by-day week-by-week if you take your monthly average When we did it earlier in the year Chris the the cream price sustains itself over and above Conversion cost to butter usually in the summer when the tenants is armed and at Christmas Doesn't it because the cream has its own market beyond it? Yeah, but it doesn't I don't think history shows it jumps that much No Your business it just needs to hold a bit firmer closer to butter even at the moment. It does need to it does need to hurt It does need to firm up a quite a bit Um, I would say But I could just can't see it doing so at the moment Catherine and what might this Decrease in milk price mean for farm cash flows So for it will have a big impact pending on where the cost of production after individual farmers and as I said there is a range of 35 pence to 45 pence. There are some extremely for side, but It depends what your your milk prices and I Think historically over the last six months or so people have been stripping out costs depending on if their milk price is lower than their cost of production They've already done the easy wins and stripped out any niceties within the milk price the challenge will be to get it down further So it's sustainable in the future and that's the worry. We are having discussions on farmers to whether an exit strategy is needed and it's also the longer-term mental health implications as well and There's a lot of discussions on farm Farmers are quite isolated, but um, you need to know what your costs are not just stick your head in the sand One thing we are Increasingly putting through the figures is Having an impact on creditors, so this will have a ripple across the whole of the industry Yeah, what Becky what do you think the longer term impact might be for farmers? I think Catherine's point really relevant isn't it is it's what you can do in the short term Which is strip out some non-essential non-critical costs to to get through the cash flow challenge and you know to keep the business operational versus what makes a long-term sustainable Milk pool whether that be on a you know a long-term sustainable farm a long-term sustainable milk pool Individual process a level and a long-term sustainable milk pool at a GB level and Interest in they had the grosser on the phone on Monday afternoon after After the price announcement from freshways and I think we've got to be really careful When we talk you know, where I wish really cognizant of it is When we talk about cost-of-production or break-eat and milk prices what what we can None of none of us are in this sector and and I when I say that I mean farmers allied industry Processors, you know retailers and consumers are even believe We're not in this industry to to not be able to eat our by-fresh fresh milk Next year our and and processes are not making investments that that they do believe a long term sound and farmers don't make investments that you know These are generational businesses, and so what you what you can do in a short-term period to get you through a crisis As with anything can't isn't sustainable long term you have to be able to Reinvest you have to be able to pay people fairly you have to be able to Build a long-term sustainable business and heard a cows and and nobody wins if you can't And I've not got you know, I've not got a silver bullet it. I think it's Interest in when you start to think of some of this volatility, you know and sort of touched on it with the freshwares price early that that You know, we to be fair to freshwares was we saw some big jumps that would probably be on the market and then we've seen some big falls And and it's that real challenge as a farmer is do you want a milk price or a beef price? So that that is reactive to the direct market that we're seeing or do you want some smooth end? But but with the smoothing comes it doesn't go up as fast as you'd like But you probably don't come down it doesn't come down as fast as it should and And it's and it's how you structure businesses to to be able to cope then as we see increase in volatility and how you structure farm businesses to be able to cope to to doing that and Without the at the MMB. I don't think was still operational when I I think I was around but but not necessarily actively in the industry at just at that point And Interesting the conversations early in my career that everybody was very pleased that at gone and then I think recent volatility is is asking the question but So so we always try to end the podcast with on a positive note or have a bit of optimism or or outlook and And I really don't feel like that is so Chris and I would discuss in earlier in the week as we were prepping what is the good news in the industry at the moment and to be fair There is one one big piece of news, which is Sheila's successor at first milk so Mr. Gossip International I'm sure Chris you've got all the details about Nassia, but just you know that That there's a piece is here and you you did you know you said a few words several weeks ago when Sheila announced she was retiring Chris didn't you have What a phenomenal job should done and she really did turn that business around and and guide and steer it through some pretty tumultuous times and They were always going to be big boots to fill, but certainly from from what I know of And what I've read so far this looks like a really good appointment. I don't know what you think Yeah, I do yeah, yeah, so the chief exactly Nassia who's saying I don't Not heard of him before, but is that a good tenure at Dale farm and across food businesses in general and so he has been in dairy It's been in fresh produce according to the press release food manufacturing So he's got a pretty sound trap record and yeah, it does look a pretty good appointment. I have to say We've had in the past in in the in the very dim and distant past some pretty eyebrow raising appointments In the co-ops that have not worked out particularly brilliantly But when I saw this I thought yeah, this looks like a this looks like a good one and my first call of the day when it came in was to Dale farm find out a bit about him Did Nick spill the beans? Not in speech in it now. I spoke to somebody else But is so I spoke to Dale farm about it and the a got good good reviews And then I spoke to Sheila and she gave good reviews too. So we will see and No doubt we'll have to invite him on here to give him the grinning I think the words you're looking for is we'd love to invite him on Welcome him into his new role That's the words I'm looking for. You really don't help my marketing Come on the cake podcast a big group grilled yeah Okay, what's nice to end on the positive um that's all we have time for today Very big thank you to our guest Catherine Rowland as well as Chris Walkland and podcast producer Becky Ray Yeah, thank you very much for listening. Yeah, and once again, it's massive. Thank you to everyone on the show today That was um, yeah, a huge amount of crowd covered um, so thank you much please see the show notes for more information Including our podcast disclaimer We will be back with you next week. We really will be this time, but for now it's goodbye from all of us here