Robert Wiseman who process over one third of the liquid milk in the UK have announced a joint venture with the A2 Corporation to distribute milk from cows that have tested to be homozygous ( A2 xA2) for Beta Casein A2.
Guernsey herds have the highest natural proportion of homozygous A2 with approx 2 or 3 times more homozygous cows than other dairy breeds.
The market for A2 milk in Australia is growing by 30% a year and is now 2% by volume but worth 4% by value, if we were to achieve a similar share of the liquid market in the UK it would require 21,000 Guernsey cows to provide it!
The customers in Australia appear to be those who have “self diagnosed themselves” to be “milk intolerant” and have difficulty digesting ordinary milk, but do not suffer the side effects with A2 miilk.
Wiseman/A2 Corp are testing all cows in herds whose owners are interested within their milk field close to the Droitwich ,Worcs processing plant and have offered to test the Guernsey herds in the West Midlands, the first of which the Leighgrange herd of Ernie Durose was tested last week .55 of the 69 cows tested have tested as A2xA2 (80%) which compares to the Holstein herds tested (30% -37%).
I have looked at the pedigrees of the Leighgrange herd and tried to predict which of the 69 cows are possible carriers of the A1 Beta Casein gene , using information about the sires and maternal grandsires that were tested before use in AI. Assuming that the A1 gene has always been passed from the A1xA2 parent, then 25 cows could possibly be A1xA2.
What will be interesting will be to see if the 14 cows that are not homozygous A2xA2 are amongst the 25 possible A1xA2 group. It is possible that some of the untested Natural Service or AI sires could also carry the A1 gene but if the A1xA2 carriers have been correctly identified then it could reduce the cost of testing other herds.
Ernie Durose is hosting a meeting in Staffordshire on the 26th March when Wiseman’s will set out the opportunity to other Guernsey herds as the A2 milk will earn a premium some of which can be passed back to the suppliers.