27 May 2014
Property sales (more than doubled to £18.2m) and cheese profits (up 19% to £39.3m) saved Dairy Crest’s results for the year to March, according to final figures published today. Turnover of the group was up marginally at £1,391.0m and operating profit was up nearly 10% at £74.5m and the previous year’s pre-tax loss of £10.7m was reversed into a profit of £54.2m mainly down to the huge exceptional costs of £47.8m in 2012-13 (£10.1m in 2013-14) and the steep cut in finance costs despite net debt more than doubling to £142m (although the previous year’s figure excluded the hole in the pension fund). Of their headline brands, sales of Cathedral City cheese were up 12% but sales of Clover were down 6% and FRijj and Country life were both down 4%. Profits at their big liquid milk dairies division were nearly doubled to £18.8m but still an operating margin of only 2%; operating margin in the cheese division was 14.9% and it was 9.5% in spreads; profits in the spreads division were down 34%.
