Industry Dairy Founded 30 April 2000 | Area served UK Revenue £586 million (2010/11) Net income 15.1 million GBP Type of business Cooperative | |
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Predecessor Milk Marque (indirectly) Key people Neil KennedyChief Executive | ||
Milk Link is a large dairy company in the United Kingdom. It is the UK's largest dairy cooperative and the UK's largest producer of cheese. In 2012 the company merged with Arla Foods.
Contents
History
It was formed in April 2000 as one of three successor co-operatives to Milk Marque. Milk Marque was broken up after the Competition Commission queried how it set milk prices.
In July 2002, the company bought the Crediton and Kirkcudbright creameries from Express Dairies for £33.1 million, which both make UHT milk. It also bought out the 50% of joint-venture partner Express Dairies in the creamery at Frome.
In February 2004 it set up The Cheese Company with Kilkenny-based Glanbia, which had four cheese processing sites producing product for frozen pizzas, in which it took a 75% stake. In December 2006 it bought out Glanbia for £47.2 million.
In July 2005 it closed a site at Sible Hedingham.
From October 2007 to February 2008 there were talks to merge with First Milk.
In August 2011 it split into two divisions of Milk Link, Cheese and Milk Link, Milk.
In September 2011 it announced that it would increase the size of the Lockerbie creamery by 50% to produce 37,000 tonnes of cheese a year, into a UK market which consumes 600,000 tonnes of cheese a year.
In 2012 the company merged with Arla Foods.
Products
Each year it handles around 1.5 billion litres of milk.
It makes the chocolate-flavoured milk under licence for the Mars and Galaxy brand.
Cheeses
It exports cheese to 19 countries.