Dairy Crest

Dairy Crest Group plc

Type	Public
Traded as	LSE: DCG
Industry	Dairy Products
Founded	1981
Headquarters	Esher, Surrey, UK
Key people	Stephen Alexander (Chairman) Mark Allen (CEO)
Revenue	£1,391.0 million (2014)
Operating income	£74.5 million (2014)
Net income	£50.2 million (2014)
Number of employees	4,500 (2015)
Subsidiaries	Express Dairies
Website	www.dairycrest.co.uk

Dairy Crest Group plc is a leading British dairy products company. Its brands include Cathedral City Cheddar cheese, Country Life butter, Utterly Butterly, Vitalite and Clover. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

Until December 2015, the company used to process and sell milk, this would be to national grocery chains and via its doorstep delivery service. They also used to produce Frijj Milkshakes.

History

Dairy Crest was established in 1981 as the processing arm of the Milk Marketing Board. In 1983 the company launched Clover, its dairy spread.

A Dairy Crest Smith's Elizabethan milk float

In 1991, the company established a joint venture with French dairy company Yoplait called Yoplait Dairy Crest (often abbreviated to YDC) which is 51% owned by Yoplait and 49% by Dairy Crest and which distributes Yoplait brand products in the UK. In 1995 it bought the Cathedral City brand of cheese from Mendip Foods Ltd.

The business was privatised in August 1996 and Dairy Crest was listed on the London Stock Exchange. In July 2000 it acquired the dairy and cheese products division of Unigate in London and in November 2002 it acquired the St Ivel spreads company which had been based in Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire. In September 2004 it went on to acquire the Country Life butter brand from the English Butter Marketing Company. In July 2006 it acquired Express Dairies from Arla Foods for £33m. In October 2006, it sold the majority of its own label cheese business to First Milk, its Scottish equivalent, along with the creameries and factory that produce most of the products concerned.

In January 2007, Dairy Crest bought St Hubert for £248 million securing the Cholegram, Le Fleurier and Omega 3 brands, which are among the top selling spreads in France, and the Vallé brand which is the market leader in Italy. In July 2013 Dairy Crest sold its doorstep delivery operations in the Northwest of England to Creamline Dairies who will operate the milk rounds from the Warrington, Flixton, Stockport and Macclesfield depots and whose subsidiary Mortons will operate all those in the Wirral, Chester and Liverpool.

On 6 November 2014, Dairy Crest announced a big slump in profits and the sale of its milk business, which processes and distributes milk, to Germany's Müller for £80 million. It came as profits at the UK's largest dairy food company fell 95% to £900,000 in the six months to September. Dairy Crest's milk business will be combined with Müller's UK subsidiary Müller Wiseman Dairies. The sale was approved by the Competition and Markets Authority on 19 October 2015, and the sale was completed on 26 December 2015.

Operations

The company supplies milk, cheese, spreads and drinks.

Cheese brands include Cathedral City, Davidstow Cheddar and Wexford. Spread brands include Clover, Country Life (named for the magazine), St. Hubert, Utterly Butterly, Vitalite and Willow. Drink brands include Country Life Milk.

Milk production sites include Stonehouse and spread production sites included Crudgington and Kirkby. Crudgington Creamery was closed in 2014 when production of spreads was concentrated at Kirkby, while its research and development facility was transferred to an innovation centre built by the company at Harper Adams University.

Since the sale of its milk business to Muller, Dairy Crest no longer make Frijj and four dairies that were included in the sale.

External links

• Official website