Chart Update, page-66

It seems that Fonterra is still working on its farmer messaging, given that it does not want to scare the market into thinking that milk containing A1 beta-casein is inferior to A2 milk, yet it does want to get farmers to start on the conversion process.

The messaging will therefore be soft, and there will be contradictory elements to it. On the one hand, Fonterra will be quietly telling farmers that they should consider converting their herds, and on the other hand they will be saying there is nothing wrong with A1 milk.

It was the difficulty of nuancing that message that caused the New Zealand Dairy Board way back in pre-Fonterra days to caution the New Zealand Dairy Group, which was the largest New Zealand dairy co-operative at that time, against going down the A2 route. I wrote about that in 2007 in my book Devil in the Milk.