Milk Link acquires award winning Cornish Country Larder cheese business

Milk Link has announced the acquisition of the award winning Cornish Country Larder cheese business (CCL) for an undisclosed sum in a deal that strengthens its position as a leading producer of British cheese.  The acquisition means that in addition to producing a comprehensive range of great tasting Cheddars, hard and crumbly territorials and Stilton, Milk Link will now be able to offer its major retail and food service customers a selection of soft cheeses.

The acquisition of CCL by Milk Link is a positive development for the Cornish based cheese business which since its creation in 1996 has played a leading role in the strong growth of the British soft cheese market.  The deal is the natural evolution of the successful strategic partnership established between Milk Link and CCL over the last 18 months.  It provides the basis for the next stage in the growth and development of CCLs award winning Trevarrian Creamery which will benefit from new investment to further enhance its processing capacity, product quality & service levels.

The Trevarrian Creamery, located on the stunning North Cornwall coast between Padstow and Newquay, produces a superb range of Cornish Bries, Camemberts and brands such as Gevrik soft goats cheese and St Endellion (a delicious luxury Cornish Brie hand-made using Cornish double cream) and the deal announced today will enable their increased nationwide distribution.  The Creamery already uses milk supplied by Milk Links Cornish dairy farmer Members and the acquisition is a further step forward in the co-operatives strategy of maximising the value of its Members milk by processing it into value added products and returning the profits generated to them as soon as possible.

Commenting on the announcement, Neil Kennedy, Milk Links Chief Executive said, Our acquisition of Cornish Country Larder further strengthens our position as a leading producer of high quality British cheeses and is an important addition to our growing speciality cheese offer.  It will enable us to offer our customers great tasting, award winning Cornish soft cheeses and will provide a strong platform to further enhance the reputation and sales of Cornish dairy products.

The acquisition is a further positive development for Milk Link whose dairy farmer Membership heartland is in the South West and is in line with our strategy of building Milk Link into the leading British value added dairy processing business.  The deal provides an opportunity for us to grow and develop an already successful business by leveraging our wider, national customer base and proven know how in sales & marketing, operations & logistics and new product & packaging development.

MILK LINK

Formed in the year 2000, Milk Link is Britains most progressive integrated dairy business. We are entirely owned by 1,500 British dairy farmers whose farm assured milk we process into a comprehensive range of superb tasting, high quality and innovative dairy products.

Milk link handles over 1.4 billion litres of milk pa sourced from a growing national milk field.  This equates to over 12% of the total GB milk production.

We are the largest producer of British cheese, supplying all major food retailers, food processors and food service organisations. We also manufacture a wide range of dairy products including long life milk and creams, extended shelf life products, flavoured milks and milk powders.  We currently employ around 1,200 people at eight processing facilities located in England, Scotland & Wales.

As a farmer owned co-operative the profits generated by the business are returned to our farmer Members to help provide a sustainable future for their dairy enterprises.  In doing so, at a wider level, we also support the economic, social and environmental well-being of many hundreds of rural communities across Britain.

Milk Links Speciality Cheese Business

In addition to producing a range of award winning Cheddars, Milk Link is proud to produce a wide selection of regional English cheeses, from Cornish Brie to Blue Stilton. We have three Creameries which specialise in speciality cheese. Our Tuxford & Tebbutt Creamery is one of only six in the world licensed to produce Blue Stilton, a quintessentially English cheese which is gaining popularity as a year-round cheese both here and in the USA.

Our Reeces Creamery at Malpas in Cheshire produces crumbly territorial speciality cheeses such as Caerphilly, Cheshire, Lancashire and Wensleydale.  It is also home to our new, 1.4m purpose-built speciality cheese packing facility. Here, we cut and pack cheeses in a wide variety of sizes and formats, many of them produced on small farms. We also cut and pack a comprehensive range of Waitroses speciality and farmhouse cheeses at this facility.

Finally, with our acquisition of Cornish Country Larder, we can now produce superb tasting soft cheeses at the award winning Trevarrian Creamery near Newquay.  These include soft cows milk cheeses such as Brie and Camembert and soft goats milk cheese. At the British Cheese Awards 2010 the Creamery won the Trophy for Best Soft White Cheese for its Trevarrian Brie and eight other awards.