Our brands

Innovating foods

Innovation is a key element of our strategy because it ensures that we continue to meet consumers’ ever-changing needs. But innovation is not limited to developing new products—where we have been very successful—it is also about finding new ways of doing business that can reduce costs and increase efficiencies and capacities.

Playing our part in creating a healthier Britain

As well as promoting the goodness of dairy products we also recognise the need to offer choice to our consumers. Over the last 12 months we have continued to build and develop our brands to offer lower fat dairy products with even better taste. We are delighted with the reception of these alternative ‘lighter’ brand extensions, and the strong sales growth they achieved during the year. One of the highlights was the launch of a lighter version of Clover, which, after just six months is already worth £7 million. Our reduced-fat cheese, Cathedral City Mature Lighter, has 30% less fat than standard cheddar and now accounts for over 10% of total Cathedral City sales. Country Life Lighter Spreadable, which was launched in 2007, is now worth almost £7 million and accounts for a quarter of total Country Life Spreadable sales. Together these three lighter brands had combined retail sales of over £40 million in the year, more than double 2008 levels.

Our efforts to develop innovative products, with greater choice for consumers and healthier alternatives, extend beyond our brands. We also work with retailers to develop own-label products. For example, we were instrumental in launching Sainsbury’s 1% fat milk in April 2008, making us joint winner of Sainsbury’s Health Supplier of the Year award.

Both Clover Lighter and Cathedral City Lighter have been supported by TV advertising in 2008/09, and the Country Life range, including Lighter, was relaunched in Autumn 2008.

Innovative packaging formats

Our investment in a new cheese-packing facility at Nuneaton is progressing well, and we expect opportunities to develop new and innovative packaging formats as it becomes operational this year. We are accelerating our investment in our new doorstep internet proposition, milk&more. This will increase sales of products to doorstep customers by offering an innovative solution that allows them to order and pay on-line. Having extensively trialled the service this year and invested in a new website, we will roll out milk&more across some 120 depots this summer.

In the packaging area, our environmental commitment led to the launch of milk in a bag in summer 2008. This reduces packaging weight by 75% compared with standard 2-pint milk polybottles. Our forecast showed that a minimum of 58 tonnes of packaging material could be saved in the first year of production. The milk bag and its innovative, easy-to-use JUGIT® was launched into Sainsbury’s in June 2008 and won a positive media response, including a feature on BBC Breakfast. This was followed by its roll-out into Waitrose in September 2008. We have also led the rHDPE (Recycled High Density Polythylene) industry working group to agree a common technical specification of the rHDPE material, so that it can be rolled out nationally in line with the industry roadmap.

Health initiatives and work with key stakeholders

As a responsible company, we care about the health and well-being of our consumers, and are continuously looking for better ways of communicating the importance of a healthy lifestyle. One example is our support for the government-led initiative Change4Life.