The figures, which represent the period between March 2016 and March 2017, also show that the average milk price has risen by 1.7%, while volume of total UK milk sales have decreased by 0.1%.

Retail sales value in the UK milk market has increased by 1.6%, being valued at just under £3.2bn, while total milk sales stood at almost 5.5bn tonnes.

Figures from AHDB also highlight that sales in the pasteurised, UHT and filtered categories were all down. Pasteurised experienced a 0.5% drop while UHT and the filtered milk experienced 2.1% and 1.0% falls respectively.

Pasteurised – which includes skimmed, semi-skimmed and whole milk – remains the most popular type of milk, holding 86.8% of sales volume.

Sales of soya milk increased by 4.8% while the “other types of milk” category increased by 20.8%.

UK butter and cheese production both fell in the year up to April 2017, with butter production down 7.1% to 144,000t while cheese fell 1.9% to 430,000t.

Dairy farmer numbers have also fallen in England and Wales, down from just under 13,000 in 2007 to 9,400 in 2017 according to the census for England and Wales.

In a meeting last week, Dr David Dobbin, chairman of Dairy UK said that the UK dairy industry needed to be recognised and prioritised in Brexit negotiations and that trading negotiations with the EU needed to continue without tariff and non-tariff barriers.

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