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 certai ...

, established by the Agricultural Marketing Act 1933, to control

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

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 Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. 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 south-west of Charing Cross in central London. Thame ...

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

Advertising

From the 1950s onwards, there were several memorable

advertising campaign An advertising campaign or marketing 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 ide ...

s 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. 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 bottle From the second half of the 19th century, milk has been packaged and delivered in Reusable packaging, reusable and returnable glass bottles. They are used mainly for doorstep delivery of fresh milk by milkman, milkmen. Once customers have f ...

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 th ...

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 English Football League Cup, often referred to as the League Cup and currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual Single-elimination tournament, knockout competition in men's domestic football in England. Orga ...

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, the trading name of Dairy Crest Limited, is 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 Milk Marke ...

, remains in existence as a subsidiary of the Canadian firm Saputo Inc. 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. Through collabor ...

representing the dairy industry in the United Kingdom.

Milk Marque Milk Marque was a British dairy industry co-operative that was the successor to the Milk Marketing Board. At one point, Milk Marque controlled over half of the UK market for raw milk. In 2000, Milk Marque's activities were split into three separ ...

, a farmers co-operative, also acted as a successor to the Milk Marketing Board.

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