Hay milk (brand)

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Heumilch is a brand of the Working Group Heumilch Austria ("ARGE Heumilch") for milk and milk products made from certified milk. The main feature of the certification is milk produced without silage . The name goes back to the traditional term "hay milk", which the Duden describes as "milk from cows that are fed with hay (in winter)".

Logo of the hay milk associations

The name has been protected throughout the EU and is available as a sales brand to farmers and processing companies, but also for own brands in retail. Certified hay milk and its products meet the EU seal “ Guaranteed traditional specialty ”. The brand itself is intended to strengthen traditional agriculture.

ARGE Heumilch Austria

Austrian working group of hay milk farmers, processors and marketers of hay milk
(ARGE Heumilch Austria)
legal form society
purpose Promotion of the hay industry and the Heumilch brand
Seat Innsbruck , SOHO II (Grabenweg 68 ⊙ )
founding April 14, 2004

Board Karl Neuhofer (Chairman)
Members 4 regional associations (ARGE Heumilch Salzburg-Oberösterreich, ARGE Heumilch Steiermark, ARGE Heumilch Tirol, ARGE Milch Vorarlberg)
Website heumilch.at

In February 2003, a milk working group (ARGE Milch Vorarlberg ) was founded in Vorarlberg to promote better cooperation between milk producers and cheese production, which is important for Vorarlberg. The ARGE Heumilch Tirol followed in September 2003, and in October 2003 farmers and processors in the federal states of Salzburg and Upper Austria joined forces in the ARGE Heumilch Salzburg-Upper Austria . Together with the Upper Styrian Dairy (ARGE Heumilch Steiermark) , the overall Austrian ARGE Heumilch was founded in Innsbruck on April 14, 2004 .

An information and marketing offensive began in 2009 by the Heumilch Working Group, which was intended to help the hay industry regain a positive image in the socially discussed context of regionalization as well as greening and freedom from genetic engineering . By 2012, almost all of Austria's major retail chains, Rewe Group , Spar , Lidl and Hofer , could be won over to include hay milk products in their range. The use of the advertising slogan “Heumilch - the purest milk” has already met with resistance from the farmers who feed silage for years, and after a lawsuit by the beverage manufacturer Fritz Egger of ARGE Heumilch in 2013, the Salzburg Regional Court prohibited it by means of an injunction. The ARGE's review course at the Supreme Court against this ruling was unsuccessful. In 2017, around 15 percent of the total amount of milk in Austria was produced according to the hay milk criteria, compared with less than 3 percent in the entire EU. In 2016 the first cheese dairy from the federal state of Carinthia became a member of ARGE Heumilch Austria. In 2017, around 8,000 farmers and over 60 processors (dairies, cheese factories, alpine dairies) were represented in the organization.

Individual measures of the predominant management of hay milk are subsidized with public funds. This includes the measure extensive grassland management in the traditional area of the ÖPUL program (Austrian program for environmentally friendly agriculture) including the measure foregoing silage (revised in 2007 and extended to 2020). The extensive grassland management implemented with the specifications of the hay milk certification is part of the three-stage management in the Bregenzerwald , which was included in the national UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage in 2011. This economy is the common form of combined hay / pastoral economy in western Austria.

ARGE Heumilch Germany

In January 2014, Heumilchbauern and processors joined the club ARGE Heumilch Germany together. As early as 2012, marketing under the label “Heumilch” in the Bavarian district of Oberallgäu was seen as an opportunity in economically difficult times. In 2017, the working group in Germany had 26 cheese and dairies with their hay milk farmers as members. In 2019, Heumilch Germany entered into a cooperation with Heumilch Austria. In Bavaria, hay milk is subsidized by branch of the farm through extensive fodder production.

Association Heumilch Switzerland

In July 2016 was based in Switzerland , the association Heumilch Switzerland. In September 2016, they signed a cooperation agreement with ARGE Heumilch Austria. In 2017, the Swiss Heumilchverein had 21 cheese and dairies with their hay milk farmers as members. In April 2018, the retailer Coop added 20 products under its own label Heumilch to its range. It thus became the main marketer of hay milk products in Switzerland and also exported cheese to Germany and the USA for the first time. At the end of 2018, there were 26 milk processors and 259 milk producers in the association. The standards in Switzerland are e.g. B. with the animal welfare label (keeping with regular outdoor exercise) a little higher than in Austria.

Further hay milk initiatives

In 2017, hay milk farmers in France founded the association Lait de Foin (hay milk France). There are also marketing initiatives in South Tyrol and Slovenia.

Goals of the hay milk clubs

The hay milk associations have the following goals:

  • Preservation of the hay industry as a natural and cultural landscape
  • Marketing of the milk produced by the members under the Heumilch brand
  • Securing the added value of the hay milk farmers and cheese dairies
  • Preservation of hay milk dairies for rural areas

The objectives correspond to Articles 8 to 12 of the Mountain Agriculture Protocol of the Alpine Convention .

Implementation requirements

In Heumilch regulative ARGE Heumilch for Austria, the provisions are summarized to produce. The regulation lists which feeds are allowed and which are forbidden in the hay milk industry:

  • The hay milk farmers undertake to comply with the criteria of the ÖPUL silage waiver measure and the implementing regulation (EU) No. 304/2016 for hay milk g. t. S. to be observed.
  • The proportion of roughage in the annual ration must be at least 75% of the dry matter. If the feed is switched to these criteria, there are temporary delivery bans.
  • no silage .
  • No sewage sludge or compost from communal treatment plants is allowed on the fields and meadows .
  • At least three weeks must elapse between the application of fertilizer (e.g. manure) and the use of the forage areas.
  • The use of chemical additives ( pesticides , insecticides for combating flies, disinfectants for cleaning the udder ) is limited.

In addition, own animal welfare criteria were decided in the hay milk regulatory:

  • compliance with the AMA quality seal guideline for keeping cows or the AMA quality seal guideline for keeping sheep and goats.
  • the number of cattle is regulated
  • the preservation of grassland areas and the management of biodiversity areas is prescribed in order to promote the biodiversity of plants on agricultural areas.
  • GMO-free (according to the Austrian Food Book : Guideline for the definition of GMO-free production of food and its labeling )

resonance

Hay milk contains a significantly higher proportion of omega-3 fatty acids than conventionally produced milk. However, this is not due to traditional grazing, but - as a study by Greenpeace showed - mainly due to the avoidance of corn silage in the feed. The sustainability portal Utopia under the motto "Only organic keeps what it promises" to the fact that it is not grazing or hay feeding that is responsible for the omega-3 fatty acids, but ecological production. The content of unsaturated fatty acids does not exclude the content of saturated fatty acids, which increase the risk of some types of cancer, obesity and possibly acne with high milk consumption. The Konradin-Verlag reported in its popular science portal in 2009 that a reliable control of organically produced milk is aimed primarily at the control of green fodder and here the measured values ​​and the like. a. of omega-3 fatty acids in tests allow a reliable statement to be made about differentiating “false” from real organic milk.

Furthermore, the animal rights organization PETA points out that the hay milk logo does not allow any statements about animal welfare. Because both with pasture and hay milk, the animals are "mostly artificially fertilized" and excess animals are killed. The Ökotest magazine therefore mainly criticizes the lack of transparency in the information provided by dairies on keeping and feeding the animals and points out that hay milk products in Germany are primarily organic products. The WWF Switzerland has the sustainability values of eleven dairy production standards compared. However, Heumilch Switzerland only met 33% or less of the content criteria.

In 2012, ARGE Heumilch invested around three million euros annually in advertising. Johann Költringer from the Association of Austrian Milk Processors (VÖM) referred to the goal of increasing milk sales overall. Instead, Heumilch has "displaced organic milk and the branded dairy products." However, the advance of the retail chains with their own hay milk brands into a higher price segment was successful.

Hay milk as a "guaranteed traditional specialty"

Hay milk is recognized by the EU as a "guaranteed traditional specialty".

Heumilch, also in the other language names English Haymilk , Italian Latte fieno , French Lait de foin , Spanish Leche de heno , was  reported (submitted) by ARGE Heumilch Austria as a guaranteed traditional specialty (gt S.) according to Regulation (EU) 1151/2012 in August 2012, published September 2014) and in March 2016 with the Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/304 in the register of protected names ( EU-DOOR ).

For official monitoring, certification bodies accredited by the relevant competent authorities can be approved as control bodies for this program in accordance with the requirements of ISO / IEC 17065. For the inspection bodies, the applying association, together with the accreditation body in the Austrian Federal Ministry of Economics, has set up a certification program for hay milk g. t. S. created.

Production shares

In Austria, the share of milk supplied by hay milk producers in total milk production is around 15%. Production takes place predominantly in mountain areas with a typical small-scale structure. Hay milk is not necessarily organic milk. According to information from ARGE Heumilch, their share (according to EU organic regulation 834/2007) in the total amount of hay milk is approx. 30%. The share of organic milk in the total amount of milk in Austria was around 16% in 2017.

In Germany, most of the hay milk is produced in the traditional Emmental and mountain cheese production areas in the Allgäu.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heumilch - term in Duden
  2. ↑ Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/304 - point 3.2 , accessed on February 18, 2018
  3. ↑ a b c d e ARGE Heumilch , heumilch.at
  4. ↑ ARGE Heumilch Vorarlberg ( Memento of the original dated November 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vorarlbergkaese.at
  5. ↑ Imprint of ARGE Heumilch Tirol , tirolkaese.at
  6. ↑ a b c d Heumilch: From slow-moving to trendsetter. In: Rind, issue 06/2012 (online, topagrar.com).
  7. ↑ Hay milk - a marketing disgrace? In: Wiener Zeitung , October 1, 2010.
  8. ↑ Hay milk must not advertise the purest milk. In: Der Standard , January 28, 2013.
  9. ↑ OGH April 17, 2013, 4 Ob 33 / 13a ( online )
  10. ^ First hay milk member in Carinthia: Kaslabn Nockberge
  11. ↑ Austrian Program for Rural Development 2014 to 2020 (LE 14-20). Retrieved March 2, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Three-stage agriculture in the Bregenzerwald. Directory of the intangible cultural heritage in Austria at nationalagentur.unesco.at (in the web archive)
  13. ↑ Dirk Ambrosch: Hay milk as an opportunity for farmers to survive in difficult times. In: das allgäu online from March 26, 2012. all-in.de (archived at archive.is, original link )
  14. ↑ ARGE Heumilch Germany. Retrieved March 2, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Cooperation with Heumilch. In: schweizerbauer.ch . August 20, 2019. Retrieved August 20, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Bavarian Cultural Landscape Program (KULAP) - measures from 2018 (Annex 3). Bavarian State Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Forests (StMELF), 2017
  17. ^ Association Heumilch Switzerland. Retrieved March 2, 2018 .
  18. ↑ Switzerland's hay milk is growing. In: schweizerbauer.ch . April 10, 2019, accessed April 11, 2019 .
  19. ^ Association Lait de Foin. Retrieved March 2, 2018 .
  20. ^ Protocol for the implementation of the Alpine Convention of 1991 in the area of ​​mountain agriculture - Protocol "Mountain Agriculture " StF: Federal Law Gazette III No. 231/2002 (as amended online, ris.bka ); in particular Art. 10 Livestock keeping and genetic diversity appropriate to the location and Art. 11 Marketing of the Alpine Convention Protocol on Mountain Agriculture (P2).
  21. ↑ Austrian Heumilchregulativ - regulations for silage-free milk. (PDF; 293 kB) heumilch.at, version January 2018
  22. ↑ Maria Ehrlich: Analysis of dairy milk products from Germany for fatty acids (omega 3, omega 6, CLA) that are important for health, taking into account the corn feed used. University of Kassel, 2006
  23. ↑ Rudolf Krux: Hay milk and pasture milk - what is it all about? Utopia, July 19, 2016
  24. ↑ a b Pasture milk - an animal-friendly alternative? PETA, March 2017
  25. ↑ Joachim Molkentin ( Max Rubner Institute , Kiel): Agricultural and Food Chemistry Vol. 57. In Martin Rötzschke: How false organic milk reveals itself. Konradin Medien (Wissenschaft.de), March 2, 2009
  26. ↑ Milk - Let's go outside! ÖKO-Test, March 27, 2015 (April 2015 issue)
  27. ↑ Swiss milk production standards: environmental and resource protection fall by the wayside. In: wwf.ch. August 20, 2019. Retrieved August 20, 2019 .
  28. ↑ Regulation (EU) No. 1151/2012
  29. ↑ AT / TSG / 0007/01035 . DOOR database, European Commission > Agriculture and Rural Development> Agriculture and Food, accessed January 6, 2015.
  30. ↑ Heumilch is now a registered trademark on ORF Tirol from March 2, 2016, accessed on March 2, 2016
  31. ↑ Certification program and certified companies
  32. ↑ AMA market information milk delivery