Arla Foods has completed the sale of British milk drinks business Crediton Dairy to a management buy-out team led by former Milk Link chief executive Neil Kennedy and former Milk Link group finance director Tim Smiddy after obtaining of European Commission (EC) approval.
Crediton Dairy is supplier of long life milk, long life cream, functional and flavoured dairy drinks and fresh bulk cream in the UK.
The new dairy - Crediton Dairy Ltd - has a current production capacity of 200 million liters and supplies products to major retailers and food service businesses across the UK.
The team has proposed to acquire the dairy business at the end of May 2013 and was conditional on the undertaking of TUPE consultation with Crediton Dairy's 117 employees and final EC approval of the sale, both of which have now occurred.
Kennedy has been appointed as Crediton Dairy Ltd chairman and Smiddy becomes the managing director.
Smiddy said that with the completion of the transaction, they can now progress with their business development plans.
"We believe that Crediton has strong growth potential based upon its self-contained, well invested manufacturing facility; growing customer base; established range of products and brands; and skilled and committed workforce," Smiddy added.
"Moving forward we will continue to focus on making great tasting, high quality products with demonstrable British provenance and traceability and complement this with customer service excellence, category insight and targeted New Product Development."
