Wiseman boosted by loyalty
ROBERT Wiseman Dairies yesterday said first-quarter sales volumes rose 11.6 per cent over the last year –? fuelled by growth in business from existing customers.
Alan Wiseman, who retired yesterday, said: “Given our volume gains in the previous year were concentrated in June 2009, we would anticipate reporting lower like-for-like growth in volumes in subsequent periods this year.”
Wiseman said its financial performance had been satisfactory in the first three months.
Although bulk cream returns had remained stable as expected, plastic and fuel costs were higher than last year.
“The recovery of these additional costs, and the objective to rebuild our underlying operating margins, remains of primary importance.
“Competition in the middle ground sector is intense; however, the company has been successful in retaining volumes and will continue to look to preserve its market share in this area”, he said.
Plans to increase capacity to 500m litres a year at the Bridgwater dairy from November
are on track, he said.
The company was also progressing an £8m investment to double its fresh filtered milk capacity and expected the project to be completed by next summer. An increase of 0.4p per litre for Wiseman Milk Group supplies was triggered on 1 July.