Australian consumers are rallying on Facebook, accusing Australia's two biggest supermarket chains of deliberately keeping name-brand milk off the shelves to sell their own home-brand variety.
Coles and Woolworths have denied the claims, saying that the sudden increase in demand for the more expensive, name-brand milk is the reason for the shortage.
Australians began boycotting $1 supermarket brand milk earlier this month, when it was announced that cooperatives Fonterra and Murray Goulburn would be dramatically reducing the price offered to Australian dairy farmers.
Many farmers were left with the realisation that it would cost more to produce milk than they would receive for selling it following the announcement, and a social media campaign was started urging Australians to choose name-brand milk over the cheaper, Fonterra and Murray Goulburn-stocked supermarket brand milk.
More than 50,000 people have joined the Dairy Farmers Need Your Help Please Facebook group since it was started. Originally, the page was used to spread awareness, but it is now used to trade theories about why name-brand milk has disappeared from Coles and Woolworths shelves.
A petition started by 16-year-old farmer's daughter Chloe Scott urging agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce to address the milk pricing crisis has received more than 150,000 signatures since it was started.