Dairy Crest finally closes down Shropshire plant

The Cathedral City cheese and Clover spread maker first announced plans to shut the factory in September 2009.

Since then it has been through a process of winding down its operation in the village, and completed that in the last three months of 2014.

However, the company is building a new £4 million innovation centre at Harper Adams, and around 40 members of staff have now moved over to the university near Newport.

In a trading update, the company said: "During the third quarter we transferred production to Kirkby and closed our spreads manufacturing plant at Crudgington.

"Our innovation team, previously based at Crudgington, has moved to Harper Adams University where we are building a new innovation centre."

In the trading update, Dairy Crest said its cheese and spreads business has performed "robustly" despite the difficult trading environment – partly thanks to the low price of cream which has adversely affected Shropshire's farming community.

However, the company's dairies business continued to make a loss, and it has now agreed a deal to sell that business to Market Drayton-based Muller for £80 million – a move which is currently under scrutiny from the Competition and Markets Authority.

The company's operations in Shropshire have been significantly scaled back over the last two decades. In 1998, the company announced the closure of its Ellesmere creamery, with the loss of 330 jobs.

At the peak of its operation, the Crudgington plant employed around 200 people producing spreads such as Clover, Argento and Willow, plus Country Life Butter.

Chief executive Mark Allen said: "The performance of our dairies business reflects the difficulties facing the whole UK dairy sector.

"The proposed sale of our dairies operations, which is progressing to plan, will lead to economies of scale. These are necessary to underpin the value currently being offered to consumers and to help the UK dairy sector compete in global markets."

Meanwhile, executive managing director Martyn Wilks is to leave Dairy Crest at the end of March, with his key responsibilities handed over to commercial director Adam Braithwaite.