Dairy Crest has outlined plans for a spreadable Cathedral City cheese product and Clover butter that claims to offer health benefits as part of an NPD push at the UK firm.
The company is looking to acclerate its innovation in a bid to continue to grow the market share of its core brands, which also include Frijj milkshake.
In a presentation to analysts yesterday, Dairy Crest said its new products include Cathedral City Spreadable and Clover Additions, a range of butter products set to contain vitamins and added calcium and that aim to add health credentials to the brand.
Executive MD Martyn Wilks said Dairy Crest wanted “to extend our brands into occasions where our consumers see we have a role to play”.
He reiterated Dairy Crest’s goal of seeing 10% of its annual turnover come from new products. Wilks said that meant GBP140m of Dairy Crest’s sales “need to come from products developed in the previous three years”.
The company is also investing GBP13.8m into its Frijj production to expand the range of packaging formats for the milkshake brands. The investment will also serve Dairy Crest’s own-label contracts.
Shore Capital analyst Darren Shirley said Dairy Crest’s innovation “remains robust”.
He welcomed the new Cathedral City product. “We believe management has been seeking for over half a decade for the technology to support a spreadable product, without damaging the brand’s taste credentials, in a category with an addressable market running into the hundreds of millions of pounds in value, we view the launch as good news.”
Shirely added he believed “all but one of the big four retailers” are to stock the Clover Additions range.
