Manufacturing & Supply Chain

The Office of Fair Trading has cleared the proposed strategic partnership between Adams Foods, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of cheese, and First Milk, the largest British farmer-owned dairy co-operative. 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 winning Lake District and 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.

The agreement marks a further important move towards Adams Foods’ 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. It represents a further major investment in building the market for both British and Irish sourced cheese, over and above the £60 million already invested in the business, including a state of the art packing facility in Leek and a recently opened innovation centre. Adams Foods is a subsidiary of the Irish Dairy Board.

The partnership is directly in line with First Milk’s  strategic objective of adding value and delivering a sustainable future for its farmer members. It not only enables First Milk to work with its partner to deliver a short, integrated supply chain, but also guarantees secure returns for its members’ milk.