Today, on World Vegan Day and as featured in the Mail on Sunday, I can unveil our latest undercover exposé into the British dairy industry. Across a period of an entire year, we investigated 16 Arla dairies revealing systemic violations and a shocking 360 alleged breaches of welfare legislation and farm assurance standards. Milk is sold to the public alongside a picturesque image of happy cows in green meadows and doting farmers, but what we have found tells a very different story. This is The Big Milk Con.

We are calling on the UK government to stop the expansion of dairy farming and fund a fair transition for farmers. Will you add your name today? 

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Arla’s milk reaches major supermarkets including Tesco and Morrisons. When we exposed Lowfields Farm last year, Arla said it took a “zero-tolerance approach” and suspended the farmer. The farm was later reinstated. We wanted to know if Lowfields was the ‘bad apple’ it was made out to be, so we filmed undercover at ten more Arla farms and visited six others on Open Farm Sunday. An independent animal welfare expert reviewed the footage, and the same problems appeared again and again. It was never just one bad farm – the industry is rotten to its core.

Across the farms, our expert identified 360 potential breaches of welfare law and farm assurance standards, and 140 of them (39%) were rough handling: cows kicked and struck, tails twisted, gates slammed on cows, and often in front of other workers who did not intervene. At Oak Lodge in Leicestershire, a farm whose owner has received industry awards and has been praised for their “very low lameness incidence”, we recorded 25 severe lameness cases, half of all 50 we found. The suffering here was critical.

The varying welfare schemes across the farms made no difference. We filmed at two sites called Longlands Farm, one in Derbyshire and one in Dorset, and both are under Arla’s ‘360’ welfare scheme. These farms recorded the highest number of potential breaches across any of the sites.

And the public is told something else completely: at Lower House Farm in Worcestershire, the farmer told Open Farm Sunday visitors, “All we try and do is make sure they have a nice life.” In April, our cameras caught the same farmer yanking cows’ tails and slamming a metal gate into a cow. 

This investigation has taken an entire year of work. On the ground investigators, footage processing and logging, an expert welfare review, veterinary opinions, strategies and communications, and a media plan. It takes our full team to package up these exposés and make them as impactful as possible for our fellow animals. Banana Bob, without your ongoing support, we couldn’t do this. Every donation you give fuels our work: we can drive to farms, pay for hard drives and produce campaign videos. Will you consider giving monthly and contributing towards our unparalleled investigative work?

This is our 28th national exposé and each and every one has contributed towards changing minds and hearts. I sincerely wish that we didn’t need to do this work, but until we live in a world where everyone is treated with the kindness and respect that we all deserve, we will keep powering on. It keeps us going knowing how much support we have from dedicated animal advocates like you.

As always,

For the animals.