Variation in Milk Fat

European Union agriculture ministers have approved a package of measures to improve the management of the dairy sector, including a major improvement in the school milk scheme. This will set a single aid rate for all categories of milk distributed in schools. The previous scheme gave a higher rate of aid for milk with a higher fat content.

This is felt to be no longer appropriate in an age when obesity is becoming a major public health problem and with the need to reduce the consumption of fat in dairy products, not least among schoolchildren. With the standard rate independent of the fat content, the EU will de facto in the future promote the consumption of low fat dairy products among schoolchildren.

Other changes adopted today will go a long way towards simplifying the Common Market Organisation for milk and dairy products. They include a liberalisation of the drinking milk market to allow the retail sale of milk with different fat contents.

The existing categories (whole fat, semi-skimmed and skimmed milk) will continue to exist. But it will be possible in future to market milk with other fat contents as long as the fat content is clearly marked on the packaging.

Other modifications foreseen concern private storage, butter intervention, import licences, and the standardisation of the rate of proteins in preserved milk.