Farming: Merger ‘has potential for good’

By Andrew Arbuckle
Published on 29/09/2012 00:00

Livestock farmers concerned at the potential loss of two sales avenues through last week’s announcement of a link-up between three major red meat processors in Scotland were yesterday told that the merger was not bad news.

Ian Watson, chairman of the co-operative Farm Stock, saw the new venture merging Scotbeef, Mathers and Scotch Premier as taking inefficiency out of the supply chain

“Normally it is best to have a large number of buyers bidding for limited stock,” he said, “but the reality is that when plants are all running well below capacity then the resulting inefficiency has to be paid for by someone. Either the retailers have to pay more or the farmer ends up getting less.

“We had faced a similar situation with our lamb groups some years ago when a number of groups got together to have a shared overhead of professional staff. The founding groups have retained their identities but they have invested in Farm Stock to provide a single group with a range of customers across the UK.”

ANDREW ARBUCKLE