Dale Farm strengthens business base in Britain

Dale Farm, Northern Ireland's biggest dairy products company, is strengthening its position in Great Britain, a key market for the business through a move by United Dairy Farmers (UDF), its parent company and a dairy co-op to increase milk supplies from farms in England and Scotland.

UDF is repositioning itself as a UK-wide farmer co-operative - it already has 1,800 farmers in Northern Ireland supplying milk for processing into a range of products including milk, butter and cheese.

The milk supplied by new members in England and Scotland will be processed into pasteurised milk, yoghurt and dessert products at Dale Farm's dairy plants in Kendall, Cumbria and at Rowan Glen in Galloway, Scotland.

Dr David Dobbin, UDF/Dale Farm chief executive, says: "Our sales of consumer products in Great Britain have witnessed record growth over the past year, mainly driven by sales of cheese, butter and spreads from our Northern Ireland plants.

"The introduction of GB membership further strengthens our position as a national dairy business owned by farmers across the UK at a time when foreign-owned dairies are increasing their presence and control in the UK dairy market.

"This expansion is good news for all United shareholders throughout Northern Ireland and Great Britain. It reinforces our credentials as a national player supplying the best Red Tractor dairy produce and will help us to increase our business with UK supermarkets," he added.

Dale Farm, UDF's processing arm, has five processing centres across the UK, including three in Northern Ireland - Pennybridge at Ballymena, Dunmanbridge at Cookstown, Dromona creamery at Cullybackey, as well as Rowan Glen in Scotland and Dale Farm Lakeland at Kendall, Cumbria.

UDF is a dairy co-operative with a turnover in excess of £400 million. The group's activities span the food chain - from providing farm inputs and services, to collecting milk, manufacturing and extensive range of dairy products for the retail, food service and food ingredient sectors and distributing these to both domestic and international markets. It exports to around 45 markets including China.