Spreads and cheese grow revenue for dairy firm

31-Jan-2018 - Last updated on 31-Jan-2018 at 11:14 GMT

Key brands such as Cathedral City in growth

Dairy Crest confirmed Cathedral City cheese and its spreads brands, including Clover, were the power behind a sales performance that was “well ahead” of last year, according to a trading statement.

In the statement for the nine months ended December 31 2017, the company said key brands Cathedral City, Clover, Country Life and Frylight, which grew by 7%, supported the revenue performance.

The company said Cathedral City had delivered another good quarter. Cathedral City Spreadable had won Product of the Year 2018 in the UK cheese category of the world’s largest consumer survey* award for product innovation, it highlighted. It added that the brand had recently launched a fresh TV sponsorship campaign.

All of Dairy Crest’s spreads brands, including Clover, Utterly Butterly, Vitalite and Willow, continued to gain market share over the period, the manufacturer reported.

Frylight

Growth in Frylight cooking oil spray remained strong going into the fourth quarter, driven by a significant increase in the number of distribution points across the UK, it said.

However, Country Life butter volumes continued to come under pressure from the increase in cream prices over the last year. It said the cost of cream had fallen in recent months and Country Life promotional activity would pick up in 2018.

Dairy Crest said sales of its functional ingredients, such as demineralised whey powder and galacto-oligosaccharide – both used in the growing global infant formula market – were “progressing well”.

Overall, trading had been in line with expectations, Dairy Crest confirmed.

Key brands

“We have seen strong growth across our key brands, with Cathedral City, Clover and Frylight performing well and all of our spreads brands increasing market share,” said Mark Allen, chief executive of Dairy Crest.

“We continue to build the customer base for our functional ingredients business and we will talk in greater detail about this in May.”

Dairy Crest said it would issue preliminary results for the year ended March 31 2018 on May 23 2018.

*A nationwide study of more than 10,000 consumers conducted by Kantar TNS.