Arla Foods on acquisition tour

Arla Foods the world’s largest producer of organic dairy productswill acquire Yeo Valley Dairies Limited, UK and announced new partnership with Britain’s leading organic dairy brand. The transaction will give Arla Foods the rights to use the Yeo Valley brand on the UK market for milk, butter, spreads and cheese under an intellectual property license with Yeo Valley. The goal is to significantly step up its ambitions for organic dairy business in the UK as the farmer-owned company, Arla announced.

Bringing organic dairy to more European consumers

The Yeo Valley yogurt, ice cream, cream and desserts business will continue to be run independently through Yeo Valley Group, which remains under the ownership of the Mead family, the Arla press release explains. Commenting on the deal, Peter Giørtz-Carlsen, Executive Vice President and Head of Europe in Arla Foods, said: "The potential for organic dairy products in the UK is significant, and our investment in range through this licensing agreement with Yeo Valley provides a significant opportunity to offer a greater choice to consumers at attractive prices. Our ambition is to encourage customers in the UK to trade up from standard to organic milk, butter and cheese, driving overall growth for organic across dairy categories.”

Currently in the UK, only four per cent of milk sold in the UK fresh milk market is organic, which compares with far greater shares of organic in the milk market in Germany (10 per cent), Sweden (16 per cent) and Denmark (29 per cent).“As the world’s leading producer of organic dairy products, Arla has promoted and expanded our sales of organic products across its European core markets over the past decade. It is a valuable part of our offer to consumers in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands as well as China and, most recently, in the Middle East. Now we take a determined step to make organic dairy products more available to UK consumers as we believe that organic milk has a key role to play as consumers increasingly look for ways to make their diets healthier and more natural," says Peter Giørtz-Carlsen.

Acquisition also in Argentina

Arla Foods, one of the strongest players in the international dairy arena, is owned by 11.200 farmers from Denmark, Sweden, the UK, Germany, Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands. The international dairy company was also active in South America: Arla Foods Ingredients has agreed to acquire 50% of the shares in Arla Foods Ingredients S.A (AFISA) currently owned by SanCor to support the company’s ambition for market growth in South America. At its site in the Argentinian province of Cordoba, AFISA processes approximately 900 million kilos of whey every year, which makes it the largest whey processor in Argentina and the South American trade bloc, Mercosur.