Leading Dairy Company Arla Foods Supporting Farmer Owners

The UK's number one dairy company, Arla Foods, is supporting its farmer owners by encouraging consumers, as well as colleagues from across the company, to take part in Open Farm Sunday.

On 7 June, more than 40 Arla farmer owners across the UK will be opening their farms for consumers to bring to life the passion and dedication that is involved in dairy farming.

Ash Amirahmadi, head of UK milk and member services at Arla Foods, said: "Open Farm Sunday is an excellent opportunity for farmers to help consumers understand more about what happens at the beginning of the dairy supply chain. Many of those consumers will have seen the recent TV programme showing how dairy products are made at Arla, and will be familiar with our products.

"We're pleased that so many Arla farmers are taking part – at a time when the market is under pressure, it's more important than ever for us to help consumers recognise the value of dairy.

"We are working hard to support our farmers in doing so, not just through Open Farm Sunday, but also with a range of campaigns and the launch of Arla-branded products, including Skyr and Big Milk, developed to drive value into milk products, to the benefit of our farmer owners."

Arla is calling on anyone taking part in Open Farm Sunday at an Arla owner's farm, to share photos on Instagram and Twitter using #supportarlafarmers

About Open Farm Sunday:

The tenth annual Open Farm Sunday will take place on 7th June 2015. Open Farm Sunday provides a great opportunity for people to visit a farm to truly get to know how their food is produced and how the countryside around them is cared for. Over the past 10 years Open Farm Sunday has achieved so much:

• 1000 farmers have hosted events since the first Open Farm Sunday in 2006
• 1.25million visitors have been to Open Farm Sunday events since 2006
• Last year 1 out of 5 visitors had never visited a farm before
  85% of visitors said that they learnt something new about farming

For more information on Open Farm Sunday visit facebook.com/openfarmsunday

Arla Foods is a global dairy company and co-operative owned by 13,500 dairy farmers circa 3,000 of whom are British.

Dating back to 1881, Arla's purpose is to secure the highest value for its farmers' milk, while creating opportunities for their growth. With production facilities in 11 countries and sales offices in a further 30, Arla is the world's fifth largest dairy company and largest supplier of organic dairy products. Arla has a total of more than 18,000 colleagues and its products are sold under the well-known brands Arla®, Lurpak® and Castello® in more than 100 countries.

Arla Foods UK is the largest dairy company in the country and is home to leading dairy brands Anchor, Cravendale, and Lactofree. It has a turnover of £2.3 billion. As well as being number one in fresh liquid milk, butter, spreads and cream, Arla is the UK's largest cheese manufacturer. It has also built the world's largest fresh milk facility located at Aylesbury and has plans for it to be the first zero carbon site of its kind. The UK business has a team of approximately 3,500 colleagues located at its dairies, distribution centres and head office.