Ms Finola McCoy:

Why is it a challenge and why are people battling? For a long time the previous EU regulatory limit of 400,000 cells per millilitre was used as the bar. That was the measure in the past. As we learn more and understand markets and the impact, there is much greater awareness of the financial cost of cell counts between 200,000 and 400,000 cells per millilitre. However, that awareness and understanding are relatively new. People have been managing at the level of between 200,000 and 400,000 cells per millilitre, but losing out perhaps without being aware of it. One of the principles of the CellCheck programme is to build awareness and demonstrate to farmers and processors that it is worth their while achieving 150,000 cells per millilitre rather than 350,000 cells per millilitre, and we can quantify the value of that.