Jean-Luc Boujon / Photo credits: Nicolas Guyonnet / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 7:50 a.m., February 5, 2024

A few days after the end of farmers' blockades to protest against their low pay, customers are invited to take their part in saving French agriculture. To achieve this, initiatives are emerging such as the “Who’s the boss?!” brand. which pays dairy farmers better.

Look better at labels, favor local products... On the shelves, consumers are on the front line to better pay French farmers. Among the avenues to favor: buy brands that pay farmers better, like the brand "Who's the boss?!", which, for seven years, has been offering the famous blue milk cartons that we see at the supermarket, but also butter, chocolate, eggs, apple juice.

Milk paid at a fair price

This brand has changed the lives of many dairy farmers, like Stéphane, a Montbéliard cow breeder since 2005. But everything could have stopped seven years ago, when milk prices were at their lowest. “We were between 20 and 22 cents per liter, knowing that the production cost was around 35 cents at the time,” he explains to the microphone of Europe 1. “Every day that passes, these are debts which are becoming more and more important and the hole is getting deeper. I was reaching the end of the line,” continues the farmer. 

It was then that her cooperative offered her the “Who’s the boss?!” operation, milk paid at a fair price in exchange for respecting specifications established by consumers like Christine. “We check that there are no GMOs and the quality of the fodder. So these are animals that are well fed, these are animals that will graze,” she explains. 

An operation that changed Stéphane’s life

And this allows Stéphane to have a fair remuneration which changes while allowing "to pay my bills, then to draw a salary. And then to pay me at least one week of vacation per year and to invest in the future , as I did with this building". 

“Today, if there wasn’t “Who’s the boss?!”, I think I wouldn’t be a producer at all,” he concludes. Today, Stéphane receives 54 cents per liter of milk. Consumers pay 1.20 euros for their blue brick. It's a price a little higher than average, but the milk brand is today the best-selling in France and helps support 3,000 farming families.