Following the completion of a full strategy review, First Milk is announcing that it has agreed to sell its Glenfield Dairy business based in Fife, Scotland to Graham’s the Family Dairy (“Grahams”).
Mike Gallacher, Chief Executive of First Milk said, “The sale of Glenfield Dairy follows a full strategic review by the Board over the summer. It will allow us to focus even more closely on our core businesses in hard cheese and liquid brokering. This is already starting to drive improvement with the business moving into a positive operating profit at mid-year, consistent with the phasing of our turnaround plan. We are confident that this focus will deliver improved milk prices and a more sustainable business model for our farmer shareholders.
“Today’s announcement is also a good deal for our Glenfield employees, our customers and consumers. Glenfield fits well with Graham’s other well-established dairy operations and the sale protects employment at the site and hence the broader Scottish dairy sector.”
Robert Graham, Managing Director of Graham’s The Family Dairy, commented, “This is an exciting acquisition for us as it allows us to extend our product range for customers and consumers even further, with the addition of cottage cheese and quark. In addition, this deal presents great potential to explore further new product development going forward.
“As a business, our core values run through the very heart of our business – family, farming and high quality products that taste great. We plan to bring these principles to Glenfield as they become part of the Graham’s family. We’re delighted to be expanding the business on home turf and will continue to be mindful of future growth opportunities.”
Reshaped First Milk
Following the arrival of the new CEO, Mike Gallacher, at the end of March 2015 First Milk has made significant progress implementing a turnaround plan. This follows a number of years of poor business performance leading up to substantial losses in 2014/15.
To date, the business has announced the establishment of business units, significant restructuring, the appointment of a new experienced executive team and new commercially based pricing scheme. Over the last 6 months the company has made a number of heavyweight appointments, including Kenny Bain (group operations director, ex Unilever, ABF, Mars), Brian Mackie (chief operating officer, ex Starbev/Molson Coors Europe, Maxxium Worldwide, Cott Corporation) and most recently Carl Ravenhall (non-executive director, ex MD Müller, Milk Link, Adams Foods).
The independent Greenburn review was completed over the summer and its recommendation are now being implemented. It is expected that a new smaller commercial Board structure will be approved by members before year end. This will be followed by the appointment of a new commercially experienced chair following the conclusion of a search conducted by headhunters Odgers Berndtson.
