Brad Hingle, the co-op’s chief financial officer, has also resigned. The reason for the resignations was that the co-op was paying its farmer suppliers too much for its milk supply.

Fonterra, the world’s biggest dairy exporter, is forecasting a milk price of $3.90/kg milk solids (18.11 c/l) in New Zealand, but until recently were forced to match MG’s price of $5.60/kg (28.58c/l).

Murray Goulburn had originally forecast profits of $89m (€132.8m) for this financial year but has now downgraded this figure to around $40m (€59.7m).

Gary Helou maintained the co-op could keep milk prices high because of the number of added-value products it sold on the home market. He even said that $6/kg was realistic, but found out, to his cost, that this was not the case.

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