UK – Dairy co-operative Milk Link has acquired processor Tanner Foods.

The news follows a Milk Link announcement last August that it wanted to move into the processing sector.

Tanner is the UK’s second largest processor of UHT milk. Its plant in Halstead, Essex, processes between 80 and 90 million litres of milk per year.

Express Dairies is the largest processor of UHT milk in the UK. Express is widely seen as a takeover target, but a Milk Link spokesman refused to comment on speculation that it has been in talks to cherry pick parts of Express.

However, Milk Link chairman Jeremy Pope said: “We intend to move forward with further acquisitions in the future.” In a statement, Milk Link said that the deal would secure a market for 120 million litres of milk per year for Milk Link members and secure supply for Tanner.
The Milk Link spokesman said that product development opportunities in the UHT sector were “wide-ranging”. He added that one key area Milk Link was interested in developing was the use of UHT milk as an ingredient in milk-based products for children.

Tanner Foods will be run as a 100% owned subsidiary of Milk Link. The company claims that its supply relationships with existing customers will be unaffected by the acquisition.

Tanner was established in 1941 as a bottled milk operation. In 1985 it bought a new UHT processing plant. It then sold the fresh milk business in 1988. In the last two years the company has refurbished its processing and packaging plant, which can now process up to 120 milion litres of milk per year.