Feed, Fuel and Fertiliser, the 3Fs, are all vital ingredients for dairy farmers. Since summer 2021, the cost of the 3Fs has been spiralling upwards making the cost of production in dairy extremely challenging and giving farmers very little capacity to embrace net zero initiatives because they don't know if their business will be profitable.

Dairy farmers currently have very little ability to control their input costs. Purchasing the 3Fs is generally a very manual process and farmers can only buy at today's prices, which are currently very high.

But there are open markets available across the 3Fs, where product is being bought and sold into the future. Generally at the moment, only big companies have access to these markets where they trade the 3Fs to secure the best prices.

Concept Dairy's innovation will change this. We're digitalising the purchase of the 3Fs for farmers so that through their phone, they can see what the live market prices are, purchase and lock-in their input costs into the future, when it best suits them. We're empowering farmers to be able to participate in the markets independently, creating much-needed financial security and sustainability of the UK milk supply chain. By giving farmers greater control of their input costs we are supporting them to be financially sustainable. It is only by addressing financial sustainability that farmers will have the capacity to truly embrace and achieve net zero.