Animal Rebellion eco-warriors plan to blockade British dairy depots for two weeks
Police form a cordon around demonstrators as 50 Animal Rebels shut-down Arla’s main dairy factory in Aylesbury by blockading the entrance with beacons, rebels and vehicles. © Martin Pope / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
The UK may face milk shortages and price hikes as vegan activists plan to disrupt supply lines by blockading dairy depots for two weeks, warned Britain’s top fresh milk supplier on Tuesday.
Animal Rebellion, an offshoot of the notorious Extinction Rebellion eco-activist group, stated that it is “prepared to do whatever it non-violently takes – and that includes prison” to force British milk manufacturers to go plant-based by 2025.
“This September we will be disrupting the dairy supply across the UK with 500 people day after day, cutting off the supply of milk to supermarkets and causing unignorable high-level disruption which will be felt by tens of millions of people across the UK,” reads a statement on Animal Rebellion’s website.
On Wednesday, a group of some 50 activists already blockaded the Arla Aylesbury plant, the UK’s largest dairy factory, which produces 1.1 billion liters of milk every year, providing some 10% of the country’s milk supply.
The managing director of Arla Foods UK, Ash Amirahmadi, has warned that “anything that adds to the cost of business will end up adding to costs for consumers,” as the average price of milk has already soared some 43% in the past year amid the cost of living crisis.
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He added that Arla Foods was working with police and the government to make sure its supply chains remain undisrupted, while Conservative MP Alicia Kearns has insisted that the “vegan militia should face the full force of the law.”
In July, a group of activists from Animal Rebellion staged an anti-dairy protest in the Harrods department store in London by taking milk off the shelves and pouring it all over the floor. The group was eventually forcibly removed from the store.
Video footage of the protest was shared by the group on social media and quickly drew the attention and outrage of other vegans, who called the act an “embarrassment” and detrimental to the vegan cause.
