Member Article

Dairy Crest weather “difficult quarter” with driving sales

Sales at Surrey-based Dairy Crest have risen 15%, despite a “difficult quarter”, the company says.

The dairy producer, with key brands such as Cathedral City, Country Life, Clover and Frijj, plan to close two dairies in order to improve selling prices.

Mark Allen, Chief Executive, commented: “Our focus at the start of the year has been on doing the right things to restore our Dairies business to a satisfactory level of profitability as well as to continue to grow our brands and we are pleased with the progress we are making.

“At the same time we are taking another significant step in the evolution of Dairy Crest by following through our strategic decision to dispose of St Hubert and refocus on the UK.”

Lower returns from commodity cream markets have affected supplying farmers, and the firm state they are working to reduce the impact of reduced milk purchase price.

At the end of June, Dairy Crest received a binding offer of £344m for its French spreads business, St Hubert.

The company say proceeds from this will substantially reduce net debt.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .