Boerenbusiness published an article on Friday 16 November with the headline: Lely may divest Orbiter. In this article it was stated that Lely might want to divest the Orbiter. This does not appear to be the case. Below is the corrected version of the article.
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Lely introduced the Orbiter in August. An innovation for processing milk directly on the farm. According to Gijs Scholman, Vice President Sales at Lely, there is enormous interest and the concept will be tested in various countries in the coming years. The question is to what extent Lely will remain involved in the marketing of milk.
Scholman spoke at EuroTier in Hanover on Tuesday 13 November. He discussed, among other things, how Lely wants to shape the dairy farm of the future (by offering automation options in all areas and by sharing knowledge). The last step in this is the separate processing of milk per cow, directly on the dairy farm; the August presented Orbit makes that possible.
"The Orbiter is of interest to a small number of dairy farmers in the Netherlands," explains Scholman. "Although the Netherlands remains important to us, it is now less than 10% of our turnover." So you have to look more broadly at Lely's commitment to this, he says. "In countries such as Russia, China and parts of the United States, the Orbiter is viewed very differently. There, the distances of milk distribution and the certainty of sales play an important role much more often. The interest from those countries is therefore very high."
Marketing is a challenge
For the time being, Lely is not marketing the concept there. First, it wants to gain experience in various countries. The test phase takes about 2 to 3 years. The challenge here is not in the technology, but in being able to carefully market the dairy products in different countries. It also concerns, for example, making agreements with retailers and food and commodity authorities.
"The question of how far we want (and should) remain involved in the marketing of the milk then arises. In the Netherlands we did it right from the start and entered into discussions with retail. That was a conscious choice to participate. looking at what was possible. Marketing milk to retail and consumers is a different type of business than the one we operate in now."
"Things have been going very well so far, but we are investigating exactly how we want and can proceed with this. In the coming years it must become clear to us how to deal with this. For us at Lely it is new to follow the 'business to consumer'. There is still a lot to discover in this. How we proceed globally will depend on the findings."
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