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| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Dairy Products |
| Founded | 1864 (as Express County Milk Supply Company) |
| Headquarters | London |
Key people | George Barham (founder) |
| Parent | Dairy Crest |
Express Dairies is a former brand of Dairy Crest, that specialised almost entirely in home deliveries of milk, and other dairy products.
The company was founded by George Barham in 1864 as the 'Express County Milk Supply Company,' [1] so named as they only used express trains to get their milk to London. The major creamery and milk bottling plant was located just south of South Acton railway station on the North London Line. This gave easy and equal access for milk trains from both the Great Western Railway and the Southern Railway. [2]
The company was purchased by Grand Metropolitan in 1969, [3] and sold in November 1991 to Northern Foods. [4] It was demerged from Northern Foods in 1998, [5] and purchased a 51% controlling stake in Claymore Dairies Ltd of Scotland, for £2.2 million.
Express Dairies acquired Star Dairies Food Service Ltd. and certain assets of Star Dairies International Ltd for £3.5 million in February 1999. In June 1999, the liquid milk operations of the United Kingdom of Glanbia plc were acquired for £100 million, and the share capital of Blakes Chilled Distribution Ltd. was purchased in August for £3 million.
Express Dairies announced a joint venture in Northern Ireland with Golden Vale plc in November 2000, that created Dale Farm Dairies Ltd, although that was sold in October 2001. Express Dairies disposed of its UHT business and Frome creamery in July 2002.
Following a period of poor profitability, the business was acquired in March 2003 by Arla Foods, [6] who in turn sold it on to Dairy Crest in July 2006. [7] Dairy Crest sold its deliveries business to Creamline Dairies in July 2013, and its milk processing business to Germany's Müller in December 2015.
Post war, Britain was changing. The chairman's new son-in-law, American citizen and ex-sailor of the US Navy, Patrick Galvani, had been studying retailing before coming to the United Kingdom, particularly supermarkets. Galvani made a pitch to the board, which resulted in Britain's first supermarket opening in Streatham, South London in 1951 under the Premier Supermarket brand. [8]
In 1960, in an attempt to expand nationwide, Galvani made a pitch to the board to buy the 212 stores of John Irwin and Sons, based in Liverpool and Merseyside, but they refused to back him; Jack Cohen of Tesco subsequently bought the chain. [8] In 1964, the Premier chain was sold to Unilever's Mac Fisheries chain for £1million. The cash income allowed Express to develop and launch marketing for long-life milk. [9]
Iceland Foods Ltd, trading as Iceland, is a British supermarket chain headquartered in Deeside, Wales. It mainly sells frozen foods, including prepared meals and vegetables, alongside non-frozen grocery items such as produce, meat, dairy and dry goods. The company also operates a chain of shops called The Food Warehouse.
Glanbia plc is an Irish global nutrition group with operations in 32 countries. It has leading market positions in sports nutrition, cheese, dairy ingredients, speciality non-dairy ingredients and vitamin and mineral premixes. Glanbia products are sold or distributed in over 130 countries. While Europe and the USA represent the biggest markets, the Group are continuing to expand into the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America. Glanbia's primary listing is on Euronext Dublin. The Group has four segments; Glanbia Nutritionals, Performance Nutrition, Glanbia Ireland and Joint Ventures & Associates, with a combined workforce of over 7,000 employees in 32 countries.
Associated British Foods plc (ABF) is a British multinational food processing and retailing company headquartered in London, England.
Dairy Crest Limited trading as Saputo Dairy UK, is a British dairy products company. It was created in 2019 when the Canadian company Saputo Inc bought Dairy Crest. Dairy Crest itself was created in 1981 as a spin-off of the Milk Marketing Board. Its brands include Saputo Dairy UK, Cathedral City Cheddar Cheese, Country Life Butter, Utterly Butterly, Vitalite and Clover.
Beatrice Foods Company was a major American food processing company founded in 1894. Over the years, Beatrice owned many well-known brands such as Tropicana, Dannon, Krispy Kreme, Jolly Rancher, Orville Redenbacher's, Swiss Miss, Peter Pan, Martha White, Playtex, La Choy, Samsonite and Avis Car Rental.
Northern Foods is a British food manufacturer headquartered in Wakefield, England. It was formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the original FTSE 100 Index. The company is credited, together with Marks & Spencer, with creating the UK Chilled Food category. The driver of this growth was Christopher Haskins, the son-in-law of the company's founder Alec Horsley. Haskins became a director in 1967, deputy chairman in 1974, and was chairman from 1980 to 2002. The company was delisted in 2011 when it was bought by the 2 Sisters company.
Saputo Inc. is a Canadian dairy company based in Montreal, Quebec, founded in 1954 by the Saputo family. It produces, markets, and distributes a wide array of dairy products, including cheese, fluid milk, extended shelf-life milk and cream products, cultured products and dairy ingredients and is one of the top ten dairy processors in the world.
Bega Dairy & Drinks is a subsidiary of Australian diversified food company the Bega Group, having been purchased from the Japanese company Kirin in November 2020. While owned by Kirin, it was known as Lion Dairy & Drinks.
Uniq plc was a British food manufacturer. Listed on the London Stock Exchange and once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, it was taken over by Irish foods conglomerate Greencore in 2011.
Coles Group Limited is an Australian public company operating several retail chains. Its chief operations are primarily concerned with the sale of food and groceries through its flagship supermarket chain Coles Supermarkets, and the sale of liquor through its Coles Liquor outlets. Since its foundation in Collingwood, Victoria in 1914, Coles has grown to become the second-largest retailer in Australia after its principal rival, Woolworths, in terms of revenue.
St Ivel is a brand of dairy products in the United Kingdom, introduced in 1901 by the Yeovil-based dairy company Aplin & Barrett, for use on a range of their products. The company was taken over by Unigate Dairy Company in 1960. Most production sites were in the south west of England and some in Wales. Most of its brands were bought in the beginning of the 2000s by Dairy Crest, following a severe decline in doorstep deliveries of milk – previously a major area of business for Unigate. In 2020 the St Ivel brand was still used for buttermilk produced by Dairy Crest's successor Müller.
Dairyland is a dairy business that operates in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. Now owned by Saputo Dairy Foods Canada, Dairyland was originally an operating arm of BC dairy farmers' cooperatives and was legally named Agrifoods International Cooperative Ltd. at the time of the sale of the majority of its assets to Saputo Incorporated. Its products are sold across Canada.
Mac Fisheries was a branded United Kingdom retail chain of fishmongers, founded by William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, the co-founder with his brother of Lever Brothers, which later merged to become Unilever.
Prairie Farms Dairy is a dairy cooperative founded in Carlinville, Illinois, and now headquartered in Edwardsville, Illinois, a suburb of St. Louis. As a dairy cooperative, Prairie Farms receives milk from producers and converts it into many different products, including cheese, butter, ice cream, sour cream, cottage cheese, various dips, yogurt, and fluid milk. Prairie Farms also produces and sells juices, flavored drinks, and pre-made iced tea.
Fivemiletown Creamery is based in Fivemiletown, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, and is a producer of handmade speciality soft cheeses and cheddars The company is a farmers' co-operative, and employs around 40 people. The creamery draws its milk supplies mostly from over 60 dairy farmers from across Northern Ireland. The company was founded in 1898 and added cheese production in 1972. Fivemiletown Creamery is the only speciality cheese maker in Northern Ireland. In 2014 Fivemiletown Creamery was acquired by Dale Farm.
Cow & Gate was a United Kingdom based dairy products company, which expanded into milk bottling, distribution, and baby food production. It merged in 1959 with United Dairies to form Unigate plc, which today is known as Uniq plc. The Cow & Gate brand survives as a specialist baby food brand, owned by Netherlands-based Numico, now owned by Danone.
Wensleydale Creamery is a cheese manufacturer based in the town of Hawes in North Yorkshire, England. It makes several varieties of cheese, but is most notable as a producer of Yorkshire Wensleydale; a variety of Wensleydale cheese with PGI status.
Fitch Lovell was a British food manufacturing, transportation, distribution and retail conglomerate with origins dating back to 1784. The company was purchased by Booker Group in 1990 for £279.7 million and during 1991 the business was merged into its parent.
Tirlán is an Irish dairy co-operative. The co-operative has its roots in a series of amalgamations of small rural co-operative creamery societies throughout County Kilkenny, most notably the amalgamation of Avonmore Creameries Federation in 1966.
The Davidstow Creamery is a manufacturing plant in Cornwall; it makes Cathedral City mature Cheddar cheese. It is the largest cheese factory in the UK, and the largest mature cheddar plant in the world.
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