Sales soar for Dale Farm dairy

Last year Dale Farm increased its turnover past £300 (€398) million, despite challenging marketing conditions including falling milk prices worldwide.

For the year to 31 March 2015, Dale Farm posted turnover £320 (€424) million, compared with £293 (€389) million for the 12 months before. However, pre-tax profit declined. In a review of the year accompanying the financial results, directors attributed the profit decline to a reduction in returns for bulk dairy products. The growth in global milk supply in the last quarter of 2013/14 continued during 2014/15 leading to an oversupply situation and a sharp reduction in dairy market returns and farm gate milk prices, explains Dale Farm.

Matters were made worse by a weakening in demand with reduced Chinese dairy imports and by the Russian import ban on EU food products introduced in August 2014. Product realisations were further impacted by the strengthening in the value of sterling versus the euro and the US dollars, which eroded returns from exports and has made imported dairy products cheaper.

However, Dale Farm has said that despite of the ‘difficult markets’ it was able to process a record volume of its members’ milk and continued to generate strong growth in consumer’s product sales, mainly in cheese. This more than offset the drop in sales in other sectors caused by the significant fall in dairy market returns.

The acquisitions of Ash Manor Cheese in Britain and the Fivemiletown speciality cheese businesses in Northern Ireland, coupled with investment in additional cheese packing capability, supported significant growth in consumer cheese sales, which more than doubled in the year.