Dairy Crest has good results Allen says

Mark Allen, CEO of UK dairy Dairy Crest, says the company has had a good set of results in the first half of 2011. “We’ve increased turnover on a like-for-like basis by four percent, our brands have grown by about five per cent, EPS is up by 16 per cent. That is a pretty good performance in this environment,” he notes. In addition to brands performing well, the company has had property sales and increased advertising for brands.

The firm continues to trim costs, to the tune of £20 million (EUR23.2m) a year. “It comes from all parts of the business. It comes from making sure we buy better, buy in the most appropriate way. It’s the benefits of some of the efficiency investment that we’ve made in our dairies business. It’s making sure we operate the business with an appropriate levels of resource,” Allen says. “No part of the business isn’t under scrutiny. All of that is done, so the most important thing for me is, actually what does the future look like? Can we carry on doing it? And I would be pretty confident that over the next three years, at least, we can carry on delivering that £20 million. We’ve got plans in place today that get us to that number.”

As for brands, profitability and turnover have both performed well, Allen notes. “We’ve been implementing price increases. And in the case of Cathedral City, we’ve reduced pack size in the first half. After challenging conditions in the first half, what we’re starting to see now is a real stellar performance for the brands. In October (the latest figures) show that the five key brands that we have – Cathedral City, Clover, Country Life, FRijj and St. Hubert Omega 3 – are up something like 25 per cent in value and around 17 per cent in volume.”

In addition, the company has had four product launches: two in France and two in the UK. In France, a non-dairy cream substitute product has been introduced, “which early indications show is performing quite well,” Allen comments. “And uniquely we’ve developed a St. Hubert spread that is a spread with seeds, which replicates the benefits of granary bread, for instance.”

Here in the UK, again we’ve launched a range of flavoured milk, called The Incredibles, under the FRijj brand. “Sales are actually doing very well,” he says. “We’ve also launched a kids’ cheese called Chedds. We’ve been working on that for some time. Again, early indications are that it’s going well.”