First Milk and Adams Foods Form Strategic Partnership
Adams Foods, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of cheese, and First Milk, the largest British farmer-owned dairy co-operative, have entered into a long term strategic partnership. The partnership will establish a fully integrated supply chain for hard cheese in the UK retail, food service and wholesale sectors through harnessing the complementary resources, skills and experience of both companies.
As part of the partnership, Adams Foods will utilise its best-in-class facility at Leek in Staffordshire to cut, pack and market 50,000 tonnes of hard cheese, including branded cheddars, produced at First Milk’s award winningLake Districtand Haverfordwest creameries. Adams Foods will take on the business for the sales and marketing of this cheese to British retail, food service and wholesale customers. First Milk will continue to manage the sales and marketing of its cheddars to export markets.
First Milk will receive a competitive price for the cheese, with the partnership also facilitating significant additional investment at First Milk’s creameries to ensure that they are amongst the best in the UK dairy industry.
According to Ian Toal, chief executive of Adams Foods, the agreement marks a further important move towards the company’s strategic vision of becoming one of the leading suppliers of cheese in the UK and will increase its turnover to in excess of £500 million. He adds: “It demonstrates our continued commitment to supporting the UK cheese market and to meeting the needs of our growing customer base. It represents a further major investment in building the market for both British and Irish sourced cheese, over and above the £60 million we have already invested in the business, including our state of the art packing facility in Leek and our recently opened innovation centre.”
Kate Allum, chief executive of First Milk, comments: “This partnership is directly in line with our strategic objective of adding value and delivering a sustainable future for our farmers. It not only enables us to work with a partner to deliver a short, integrated supply chain, but most importantly guarantees secure returns for our members’ milk. Additionally, it will provide a platform for us to focus more of our time and resources on priority growth areas like brand development, lifestyle nutrition and exports.”
The partnership will be subject to competition approval.
