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Dairy Crest

Dairy Crest Group plc
Public
Traded as
Industry Dairy Products
Founded 1981
Headquarters Esher, Surrey, UK
Key people
Stephen Alexander (Chairman)
Mark Allen (CEO)
Revenue £422.3 million (2016)
£65.6 million (2016)
£(113.0) million (2016)
Number of employees
1,180 (2016)
Subsidiaries Express Dairies
Website www.dairycrest.co.uk

Dairy Crest Group plc is a leading British dairy products company. Its brands include Cathedral City Cheddar cheese, Country Life butter, Utterly Butterly, Vitalite and Clover. It is listed on the and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

Until December 2015, the company used to process and sell milk - in wholesale and via doorstep deliveries - and owned the Frijj milkshake brand. These were sold to Germany's Müller for £80 million.

Dairy Crest was established in 1981 as the milk processing arm of the Milk Marketing Board. In 1983 the company launched Clover, its dairy spread. In 1991, the company established a joint venture with French dairy company Yoplait called Yoplait Dairy Crest (often abbreviated to YDC) which is 51% owned by Yoplait and 49% by Dairy Crest and which distributes Yoplait brand products in the UK. In 1995 it bought the Cathedral City brand of cheese from Mendip Foods Ltd.

The business was privatised in August 1996 and Dairy Crest was listed on the . In July 2000 it acquired the dairy and cheese products division of Unigate in London and in November 2002 it acquired the St Ivel spreads company which had been based in Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire. In September 2004 it went on to acquire the Country Life butter brand from the English Butter Marketing Company. In July 2006 it acquired Express Dairies from Arla Foods for £33m. In October 2006, it sold the majority of its own label cheese business to First Milk, its Scottish equivalent, along with the creameries and factory that produce most of the products concerned.


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