Exception 2024

The final date to start grazing has been postponed to July 1st  for dairy farmers who participate in the Meadow Milk program. The grazing foundation has made this decision; because of the persistent rainfall it is not possible for a group of dairy farmers to start grazing. The postponing of the final start date has no consequence for the number of days and hours of grazing that need to be met for the Meadow Milk scheme. The requirements stay the same: for the Meadow Milk scheme dairy cows need to graze at least 120 days and at least 720 hours.

As the owner of the Meadow Milk logo, the Grazing Foundations establishes the conditions. Producers in the production chain of a meadow dairy products are certified. Trademark owners of products that use the Meadow Milk logo request a license.

Certification of Meadow Dairy 

Each link in the chain must demonstrably operate according to the conditions of the Grazing Foundation, and this must be safeguarded by certification. Depending on its role in the production chain, the company will be issued with a certificate for parts A, B and / or C. Grazing Certificate part A is for dairy companies which buy raw milk from dairy farms. Part B is for companies that transport/have milk transported in insulated milk tankers and part C is production locations in the dairy product production chain. Small-scale dairy producers are also eligible to be granted a Grazing Certificate.

All certificate holders are assessed by a CB at the start. Subsequently, they are assessed annually. The assessment by the CB is known as an audit. Basically, the CB checks that the milk flow originates from cows which have access to grazing and that the milk flow throughout the production chain is not mixed with non-grazing milk flows.

Inspections are performed on a percentage of dairy farms in order to obtain an impression of the grazing practice on dairy farms that supply meadow farm milk to a dairy company with a Grazing Certificate Part A. Each year, 40% of the dairy farms is inspected.

Licence for the meadow milk logo

Once the whole dairy product supply chain has been certified and the brand owner has received a licence from the Grazing Foundation, the end product may be sold to the consumer with the meadow milk logo on the packaging. Before this can be done, the brand owner must conclude a licence agreement with the Grazing Foundation. Among other things, the licence agreement sets out the arrangements relating to use of the logo.

The licence is linked to the last Grazing Certificate in the production chain. If the brand owner is also the producer, this is usually its own certificate. If the brand owner is not a producer (i.e. a retailer), this is the certificate held by the producer which supplies the product to the brand owner. The brand owner is responsible for compliance with the conditions set out in the licence agreement.