Dairy Crest’s annual report

The Dairy Crest Group has released its annual report.

Highlights from the report include:

• Cathedral City had another good year, growing sales ahead of the retail cheese market. It has grown to be Britain’s 16th largest grocery brand (Source: The Grocer, 21 March 2015), up from 18th in March 2014.

• Both Country Life (butter) and Clover (spread) saw their sales value fall in a declining butter and spreads market although sales of Country Life Spreadable grew in the year.

• FRijj sales grew by 7%.

• Frylight one calorie cooking spray continued to grow sales and market share. The brand has responded well to the increased investment behind it and has the potential to grow further.

• During the year we have carried out a comprehensive category strategy project ‘Dairy for Life’ which forms the foundation for future innovation, marketing and category merchandising for our key brands.

• We are investing £65 million at our Davidstow creamery to manufacture demineralised whey and galacto-oligosaccharide (‘GOS’) and expect commercial production of these products to start later in 2015.

• Following the closure of our Crudgington site, we are building a new £4 million innovation centre at Harper Adams University in Shropshire, where our innovation team is now based.

You can read the whole report on Dairy Crest’s website.