History
In 1960 Somerset produced the most milk in England. [3]
In the mid-1970s, the UK imported 80% of its dairy products. Unigate in the 1970s was the largest dairy company in the UK, with the Unigate Foods division trading under the well-known 'St Ivel' label, headquartered in Wootton Bassett in north Wiltshire near Swindon. [4]
In July 1979, Unigate sold 75% of its milk production to the Milk Marketing Board for £55m. This gave the Milk Marketing Board 22% of butter in England and Wales, and 25% of cheese. [5]
By 1985, 40% of milk was bought in supermarkets.
In January 1989, Unigate, run by John Clement, sold all its milk processing north of the Thames to Dairy Crest, for £152m (£126m net). The sale included seven processing sites and eighty nine distribution depots. Before the sale Unigate produced a third of liquid milk in England and Wales. It gave Dairy Crest 16% of milk processing in England and Wales. [6]
The Food Safety Act 1990 introduced supermarket 'best before' and 'use by' dates. The British milk industry became deregulated on 1 November 1994.
Arla operations in the UK merged with Express Dairies, of Leicester, with chairman Sir David Naish, to become Arla UK in October 2003. [7]
Friesland Campina UK, of the Netherlands, moved from Horsham in West Sussex, to London in 2024; their Yazoo (drink), launched in 1987, is the most popular flavoured milk product in the UK.
Butter
After the Second World War, New Zealand shipped its excess production of butter to the UK. Anchor butter largely became a top-seller from then on.
Country Life butter began in 1970. St Ivel owned the St Hubert and Le Fleurier spreads in France, until 2017, made in Ludres in Grand Est.
In 1975 the UK was producing only 5% of its butter requirements; New Zealand supplied 20% (Anchor butter). It had been only 5% of butter from British manufacturers in 1938, hence butter was so stringently rationed in the Second World War. In 1973, the UK had produced 20% of its butter requirements, importing around 500,000 tonnes of butter. [8]
The other main foreign supplier of butter, in the 1970s, was Lurpak, of Denmark, also part of the EEC, and Lurpak was selling more and more to Britain during the 1970s; Danelea butter also came from Denmark. By 1975 Germany claimed to export 10% of British butter requirements, with exports increasing from 3,000 tonnes in 1973 to 40,000 tonnes in 1975.
In 1978, Anchor butter, of New Zealand, was the best-selling make of butter in the UK, but the EEC wanted to stop all imports of Anchor butter to the UK. Consumption of butter in the UK was around 400,000 tonnes, with around 100,000 tonnes of imported Anchor butter. Country Life butter was around 30,000 tonnes in 1977. [9]
By the mid-1980s New Zealand was exporting around 25% of British butter requirements. The EC blocked exports of Anchor butter at no more than around 78,000 tonnes, a strategy that had been largely instigated by Austin Deasy of Ireland. [10]
After the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in July 1985, New Zealand released Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur, in return for France allowing imports of Anchor butter into the UK, which France had agreed. Anchor butter was frozen in transit, and took five weeks to reach the UK. [11]
Anchor Spreadable was introduced in 1991, the first of its kind. HM Customs and Excise claimed that this new product was not a natural butter, but a manufactured product. Imported butter had an import duty of around 35p per tub. HM Customs and Excise wanted 98p of import duty, but lost the case of New Zealand Milk Products in February 1999 in the High Court. [12]
Anchor butter was made from October 2001 by Arla Foods, when it bought the UK interests of New Zealand Milk. [13] Fonterra dairy co-operative made Anchor butter elsewhere, also formed in 2001.
In the 2010s butter was now selling well, up 17% year on year. By 2011 Country Life butter produced 11% of British requirements; but around 75% of butter sold in the UK was imported. Lurpak, of Denmark, sold the best, providing 42% of British requirements. [14]
Cheese
In 1938 the UK produced only 23% of its requirements for cheese, leading to heavy rationing in the Second World War. By 1973 the UK produced 56% of British cheese requirements, and 75% by 1975.
Consumption of cheese in the UK increased 24% from 1974 to 1982 to 272,000 tonnes, with two-thirds of that Cheddar. [15]
Lymeswold cheese was introduced in the south of England in October 1981, and across the UK in September 1982, due to an over-supply of milk. It was developed by Dairy Crest at Crudgington, and manufactured at Cannington in Somerset. It was selling £5m a year in 1984, and outsold all other blue cheeses.
All was going well until Lymeswold production was moved to Aston by Wrenbury (Newhall, Cheshire), near Nantwich in Cheshire in April 1984, to make 4,000 tonnes per year. This would be equal to the annual British consumption of Stilton cheese, which was an optimistic sales figure, and four times the production of the former Cannington plant. [16] [17] [18] There were technical difficulties in the product, and sales soon plummeted. Dairy Crest removed it in May 1992.
The Cheshire site was bought by New Primebake, in 1993 for £0.75m, who were later bought by Bakkavör in 2006. From September 1993, the site now makes 6 million garlic baguettes every week, with 70 tonnes of butter; nearly all garlic baguettes in British supermarkets are produced at that Cheshire site.
The cheese and milk division of Unigate merged with Dairy Crest in July 2000.
Most mozzarella in the UK is made in Germany, such as by DMK Deutsches Milchkontor, but the two Leprino Foods mozzarella plants in North Wales and County Down, in Northern Ireland, are Europe's largest producer of mozzarella.
Yoghurt
Yoplait, of France, formed joint-venture with Dairy Crest and Sodiaal in September 1991.
When Nestlé bought the Ski yoghurt enterprise on 31 January 2002, Ski yoghurt had 11% of British yoghurt consumption; Müller had 30%. [19]
Danone, of France, bought the yoghurts division of Dairy Crest in August 2002 for £32m.
