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Milk Marketing Board

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Former Milk Marketing Board building in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

The Milk Marketing Board was a producer-run product marketing board,[1] established by the Agricultural Marketing Act 1933,[2] to control milk production and distribution in the United Kingdom. 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 in Surrey.

Advertising

See also: Humphreys (Unigate)

From the 1950s onwards, there were several memorable advertising campaigns by the Milk Marketing Board. Slogans included "full of natural goodness", "is your man getting enough?", "milk's gotta lotta bottle" (written by the advertising executive Rod Allen), and "drinka pinta milka day" designed by the advertising agency Ogilvy.[3] In the 1980s, they ran the advert "Accrington Stanley, Who Are They?".

The campaigns were largely on ITV television, but were also printed on the returnable milk bottles delivered by milkmen. The Milk Marketing Board sponsored the Milk Race 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 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, remains in existence as a subsidiary of the Canadian firm Saputo Inc.[4] 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 representing the dairy industry in the United Kingdom.[5]

The MMB was mentioned in the 1970 Monty Python's Flying Circus episode "It's A Living", in the "Dung" sketch, where for every two pints of milk purchased, they would get the M4 Motorway in the United Kingdom.

Arms

Coat of arms of Milk Marketing Board
Crest
Within a crown palisado Argent a mount Vert thereon a cow statant also Argent.
Escutcheon
Vert issuant from the sinister base three piles wavy bendwise conjoined at the dexter chief point Argent.
Supporters
On the dexter side a lion and on the sinister side a dragon Argent.
Motto
Together In Enterprise

References

  1. ^ Dairy Crest website (History). Retrieved 30 June 2015.
  2. ^ Agricultural Marketing Act 1933 (Hansard). Retrieved 30 June 2015.
  3. ^ "Former Ogilvy & Mather chief Archie Pitcher dies" Campaign February 10, 2017. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
  4. ^ "Cream for UK farmers: Dairy Crest flotation pencilled in for early 1994 promises about pounds 8,000 each in share windfall". www.independent.co.uk. 13 June 1993. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  5. ^ "Who we are". 26 October 2018.
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