The farmer-owned co-operative First Milk has announced that it has appointed Mike Gallacher as the new chief executive to replace Kate Allum who led the business for six years.

Mr Gallacher has spent most of his career with Mars Inc. where he held a series of senior leadership positions, most recently as UK managing director for Mars Petcare. He led significant business turnarounds in Asia for Mars as well as working in regional leadership positions in both Asia Pacific and Europe. Prior to Mars, he was an army officer for eight years.

First Milk chairman Sir Jim Paice MP commented: "Mike has all the attributes to put our business back where we want it to be. He has considerable leadership qualities, has turned around businesses in different geographies, and has experience in some of our key export markets. He demonstrated throughout the interview process that he has rapidly built high performing teams and organisations throughout his career and I look forward to working with him."

Headquartered in Glasgow, First Milk currently pays its 1200 UK farmer members one of the lowest prices for their milk. The co-op hit the news headlines in early January when it announced swingeing price cuts, to come into effect on February 1st, of 2.43p per litre (ppl) for milk destined for its manufacturing pool and 1.6ppl for its liquid pool. The severity of those cuts were partially reversed a few days later when the company made the shock announcement that the payment due to be made on January 12th for milk supplied in December was to be deferred until January 26th, with all future payments also being deferred by two weeks.

Against the partial price cut reversal of 1.1ppl to 21.2ppl for liquid and 21.57ppl for manufacturing, the co-op announced that it was increasing its members' capital contributions from 0.5ppl to 2ppl for milk supplied between December 2014 and August 2015.

Last week the co-op announced that it was introducing a new, controversial two-tier, "A" and "B" pricing system that will effectively see its members' net milk receipts for milk delivered in April fall to 18ppl or less.

Market round-up

The Cumberland and Dumfriesshire Farmers Mart sold 6672 prime hoggs in Longtown on Thursday to a top of £125 per head and 288.9p per kg to average 203p (+2.4p on the week).

There were also 3600 cast sheep forward when heavy ewes sold to £158 for Texels and averaged £108.11 (+£2.86), while light ewes peaked at £100 for Cheviots and levelled at £65.93 (+22p). Rams sold to £170 for a Charollais and averaged £112.82 (+36.28).