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When consumers purchase dairy products or foods containing dairy ingredients they see the brand or the name of the manufacturer and occasionally that of the packaging producer. They do not see the name of the bank that financed the manufacturer’s business, the equipment companies that supplied the installations or the other external parties involved in the production and delivery to the market of these products. Dairy traders also belong to this invisible but crucial group of companies in the supply chain. And where the role of the bank or the equipment company is relatively easy to explain, this is not necessarily the case for the traders.
The European dairy trading community provides a variety of services to the market place and ensures that products find buyers efficiently and effectively. Traders have a key role in connecting supply to demand, thus improving the functioning of the dairy market and limiting price volatility. This becomes evident not just by looking at an individual transaction involving a trader but at the total mass of transactions involving all dairy traders.
This lack of visibility and the complexity of its role obscures the positive and responsible contribution of trade to the good functioning of the dairy market place.
Eucolait, the European Association of Dairy Trade represents the interests European wholesalers, exporters and importers of dairy products. Founded in 1959, Eucolait today has over 500 members in 16 EU Member States and many associate members outside the EU.
Eucolait members are keen to ensure that policy makers and stakeholders in the dairy supply chain gain a better understanding of the positive and responsible role of dairy traders and have compiled the following set of principles of responsibility which guide them in their daily business.
The Principles: