Dairy Crest sees sales climb thanks to key brands
Food company Dairy Crest has revealed a rise in revenue in the first nine months of its financial year, driven by a strong performance across its key brands and product launches.
The dairy products firm, which has its innovation centre at Harper Adams University near Newport, attributed its performance in the nine months to December 31 to its popular products, which all delivered strong volume and revenue growth.
These include Cathedral City, Clover, Country Life and Frylight. Together, the brands delivered revenue growth of about 10 per cent for the third quarter and six per cent for the nine months ended December 31 2018.
Dairy Crest, which closed its former Crudgington creamery site near Telford in 2015, said Cathedral City had a "particularly good" third quarter.
Both volume and revenue grew by about 10 per cent helped in part by new product launches, including flavoured snack bars, Lactose Free and a refreshed kids' snacking range.
Frylight returned to double digit volume and revenue growth in the third quarter, although over the nine month period the brand declined due to the "challenging" first half of the year, the company said.
Following a reduction in cream prices, it started to promote Country Life again which led to positive volume and revenue growth in the quarter.
The company said its the outlook for the full year remains in line with its expectations.
Mark Allen, chief executive of Dairy Crest, said: "Our key brands have delivered exceptional performance in the third quarter with all four generating both volume and revenue growth.
"Demand for our functional ingredients is also increasing, with positive implications for price.
“We have launched several major innovations during the past nine months. It is gratifying to have received external validation of one our most technologically advanced achievements, Clover Light with No Artificial Ingredients, by winning ‘Product of the Year 2019’.
"This is the third consecutive year that one of our products has been awarded this accolade.”
In a trading statement, the firm said it was also taking steps to reduce the impacts surrounding Brexit.
"There is significant uncertainty around Brexit and the impact of a potentially disorderly exit is hard to predict. Whilst our supply chain and customer base are primarily located in the UK, we are taking steps to reduce our exposure, including accelerating the purchase of ingredients and packaging materials," it said.
Dairy Crest will issue its preliminary results for the year ended March 31 2019 on May 23.
