Former Milk Marketing Board (geograph 6790053)

The Milk Marketing Board was a producer-run product

marketing board A marketing board is an organization created by many producers to try to market their product and increase consumption and thus prices. It can also be defined as an organization set up by a government to regulate the buying and selling of a certain ...

, established by the Agricultural Marketing Act 1933, to control

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. Immune factors and immune ...

production and distribution in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. It functioned as buyer of last resort in the milk market in Britain, thereby guaranteeing a minimum price for milk producers. It also participated in the development of milk products, introducing Lymeswold cheese. It was based at

Thames Ditton Thames Ditton is a suburban village on the River Thames, in the Elmbridge borough of Surrey, England. Apart from a large inhabited island in the river, it lies on the southern bank, centred 12.2 miles (19.6 km) southwest of Charing Cross ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

Advertising

From the 1950s onwards, there were several memorable

advertising campaign An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). An IMC is a platform in which a group of people can group their ideas, beliefs, and conc ...

s by the Milk Marketing Board. Slogans included "full of natural goodness", "is your man getting enough?", "

milk's gotta lotta bottle "Milk's gotta lotta bottle" was an advertising slogan used by the British Milk Marketing Board (MMB) in the early 1980s. It followed the " drinka pinta milka day" slogan used by the MMB from 1959. The new slogan was an attempt to halt declining ...

" (written by the advertising executive

Rod Allen Roderick Bernet Allen (born October 5, 1959) is an American former professional baseball outfielder and current game analyst for the Miami Marlins on Bally Sports Florida. He formerly worked as an analyst for the Detroit Tigers on Bally Sport ...

), and "

drinka pinta milka day "Drinka pinta milka day" was an advertising slogan used by the British Milk Marketing Board and Dairy Council. It was coined by Bertrand Whitehead in 1958 as part of a campaign to counter the drop in milk sales following price increases after t ...

" designed by the advertising agency Ogilvy. In the 1980s, they ran the advert "

Accrington Stanley, Who Are They? Accrington Stanley, Who Are They? is a slogan that was used in an advert for milk, by the Milk Marketing Board in the 1980s, in the United Kingdom. The advert starred Carl Rice and Kevin Spaine. Advert The advert features two young Liverpool F ...

". The campaigns were largely on

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

television, but were also printed on the returnable

milk bottle Glass milk bottles are glass bottles used for milk and they are generally reusable and returnable. Milk bottles are used mainly for doorstep delivery of fresh milk by milkmen as retail store sale is available in some regions (with bottle de ...

s delivered by milkmen. The Milk Marketing Board sponsored the

Milk Race The Tour of Britain is a multi-stage cycling race, conducted on British roads, in which participants race across Great Britain to complete the race in the fastest time. The event dates back to the first British stage races held just after the S ...

Tour of Britain cycle race from 1958 to 1993, at thirty five years, making it the longest cycle sponsorship ever in the United Kingdom. The Milk Marketing Board also sponsored the

Football League Cup The EFL Cup (referred to historically, and colloquially, as the League Cup), currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout competition and major trophy in men's domestic football in England. Organised by the ...

from 1981 to 1986, renaming it the ''Milk Cup''.

Dissolution

The board's responsibilities effectively ended, save for residual functions, in April 1994, with deregulation of the milk market in Britain following the Agriculture Act 1993. Its former processing division,

Dairy Crest Saputo Dairy UK Limited is a holding company for Dairy Crest Limited, a British dairy products company. It was created in 2019 when the Canadian company Saputo Inc bought Dairy Crest. Dairy Crest itself was created in 1981 as a spin-off of the ...

, remains in existence as a subsidiary of the Canadian firm

Saputo Inc. Saputo Inc. is a Canadian dairy company based in Montreal, Quebec, founded in 1954 by the Saputo family. It produces, markets, and distributes a wide array of dairy products, including cheese, fluid milk, extended shelf-life milk and cream prod ...

The Milk Marketing Board was finally dissolved in January 2002. The Scottish Milk Marketing Board was similarly dissolved in December 2003. Dairy UK is a current

trade association A trade association, also known as an industry trade group, business association, sector association or industry body, is an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific Industry (economics), industry. An industry tra ...

representing the dairy industry in the United Kingdom.

Arms

References

{{Authority control 1933 establishments in the United Kingdom 2002 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Agricultural organisations based in the United Kingdom Borough of Elmbridge Dairy farming in the United Kingdom Dairy marketing Dairy organizations Defunct companies based in Surrey Marketing boards Organisations based in Surrey Organizations established in 1933 Organizations disestablished in 2002 Science and technology in Surrey