Dairy does nicely for Danone

FRANCE – Danone has released results for the third quarter which show that its dairy business is rocketing.

Sales of the company’s fresh dairy products are up 9.5% on the same period last year. That means that for the first nine months of the year, dairy is trading an impressive 10.6% up on last year.

The majority of the growth has come from outside Europe, where sales for the quarter were up just 1.1%. In Asia sales were up 12.6% on the same quarter last year and sales in the rest of the world were up 18.9%.

Humana and Nordmilch agree merger GERMANY – Germany’s two largest dairy companies, Nordmilch and Humana, have agreed upon a merger.

The deal will take affect from 1 January but is still subject to clearance from German competition authorities.

The new company will process around 6.4 billion litres milk each year, will be owned by 18,000 farmers and will have an annual turnover in the region of