Dairy Crest
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Dairy Crest Group plc | |
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| Type | Public (London Stock Exchange: DCG) |
| Founded | 1933 (as the Milk Marketing Board) |
| Headquarters | Esher, Surrey, UK |
| Key people | Simon Oliver, Chairman Mark Allen, Chief Executive |
| Industry | Dairy Products |
| Revenue | £1,355.2m [1] |
| Employees | 7000 |
| Website | www.dairycrest.co.uk |
Dairy Crest Group plc is a major dairy products company in the United Kingdom. Its brands include Cathedral City Cheddar cheese, Utterly Butterly, Vitalite, Clover, St Ivel and FRijj. They also deliver milk to around 1.1 million households via their milkmen.
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[edit] History
In 1933 the British Government established the Milk Marketing Board to regulate milk production in the UK. In 1981, Dairy Crest was established as the processing arm of the Milk Marketing Board: it was privatised in August 1996. In July 2000, it acquired the dairy and cheese products division of Unigate (based near the BBC in London). In November 2002, it acquired the St Ivel spreads company (based in Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire). In September 2004, it acquired the Country Life butter brand from 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.
Since 1991, Dairy Crest has had 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. The company distributes Yoplait brand products in the UK.
In January 2007 Dairy Crest finalised the acquisition of St Hubert for £248 million. St Hubert's brands Cholegram, Le Fleurier and Omega 3 are among the top selling spreads in France, while Vallé is the market leader in Italy.
[edit] Liquid Milk
Dairy Crest is a major supplier of own label milk to UK supermarkets. Current contracts include Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Lidl and Co-Op.
Dairy Crest is the largest UK 'middle ground' distributor of milk and dairy products, servicing wholesalers, foodservice and Bottle Milk Buyers (known within the industry as BMBs).
Dairy Crest is also the largest doorstep milk operator (i.e. the traditional UK milkman) in the UK. Despite the 'doorstep' industry suffering a gradual decline since the early 1980s, this is still a profitable part of the industry.
Dairy Crest (along with Unigate and Express Dairies) pursued an aggressive policy of franchising milk rounds in the early 1990s, however by the early noughties many rounds had reverted to being managed.
In 2007, Dairy Crest launched "milk&more", an online ordering service for its doorstep customers.
[edit] Cheese
It produces several brands of cheese. The most popular one is Cathedral City, a brand of cheddar cheese produced at Davidstow in Cornwall (which is not a City and does not have a Cathedral), from a 25 year old recipe. It is currently the most popular brand of cheddar cheese in the UK. Dairy Crest bought the brand from Mendip Foods Ltd in 1995.
Other cheese brands include Davidstow, the Hartington brand of Blue Stilton and Wexford.
[edit] Spreads
St.Ivel Gold is a low fat spread that was launched in 1977 by St Ivel and became popular for being lower in fat than other brands.
Originally a Kraft then St Ivel brand, Vitalite is a sunflower spread which is known for its Smiling Sun which was part of a famous advertising campaign, with a song rhyming Vitalite. Empty Vitalite tubs are also popular for being used as bowls for feeding pets.
Utterly Butterly is a brand that is made from buttermilk, there is also a Scandinavian variant. It is a sponsor of a wing walking team.
Willow is a churned buttermilk-based spread, which is sold as 250 g blocks. Other brands include Golden Churn, Country Life (formerly owned by English Butter) and Clover.
The butters and Clover are made in Crudgington in Telford, and the other spreads such as Gold are made in Kirkby in north Merseyside.
[edit] Drinks
FRijj is a milkshake drink. It is typically sold in 500ml curvy bottles. Flavours include chocolate, banana, strawberry, vanilla and white chocolate. There are also limited edition flavours featuring characters from The Simpsons. These are typically available for a few months at a time. The following flavour/character combinations have been released: banoffee pie (Krusty the Klown); raspberry doughnut (Homer Simpson); mint chocolate (Mr Burns); chocolate fudge brownie (Chief Wiggum). The current limited edition, raspberry, is not associated with any character, and used to be part of the standard range. By popular demand, chocolate fudge brownie has become a permanent flavour.
[edit] Ingredient Products
Milk powders etc.
[edit] Production sites
The main production sites in the UK are in Chadwell Heath, close to the A12 which bottles much of the milk for London, and at Severnside in Stonehouse in Gloucestershire, close to junction 13 of the M5.
[edit] Advertising
From the 1950s onwards there were several memorable advertising campaigns by the Milk Marketing Board. Slogans included: "Full of natural goodness", "Is your man getting enough?", "Milk's Gotta Lotta Bottle" (written by the advertising executive Rod Allen) and "Watch out there's a humphrey about" (1970s) which was used in conjunction with images of a long straw 'stealing' milk from a glass.
