Dale Farm in Cheese Deal with Greggs Bakery
Food NI member Dale Farm, the Northern Ireland cooperative, has secured a major three-year contract to supply cheese to Greggs, the UK’s largest bakery chain.
Dale Farm’s award-winning cheddar cheese, which is made in Northern Ireland, will be used in Greggs’ range of sandwiches, stocked in their 1,969 shops every day. It will also supply cheeses for the food-on-the-go retailer’s pizza range.
Dale Farm’s group commercial director Stephen Cameron said they are delighted to secure the new deal. “The contract is proof of the excellence of our product and a significant development for our cheese business,” he said.
“Having the trust of a major food-on-the-go retailer such as Greggs is also testament to the high quality of milk used to make our cheese, which comes into Dale Farm through our network of 1,300 hard-working dairy farmers across the UK.”
Alan Honeyman, head of procurement at Greggs added:“We are looking forward to working with Dale Farm, whose excellent reputation for product quality, provenance and sustainability make this a strategic choice for Greggs, as we remain committed to offering good, honest food that our customers can trust, at affordable prices.”
Dale Farm’s cheese business has been driving substantial growth for the company in recent years. The Greggs contract represents the latest of several major cheese supply partnerships secured by the dairy company in its core markets.
The announcement of the new contract comes less than two weeks after Dale Farm confirmed it is to move its Fivemiletown cheese production to its facility at Dromona, Cullybackey.
Dale Farm has taken the decision not to renew its lease on the Fivemiletown Creamery site, secured in 2014, with production in Co Tyrone due to end early next month.
The dairy cooperative is supporting the 18 staff currently employed at the Fivemiletown site by offering transfers to other Dale Farm production locations or, where this is not feasible, securing suitable redundancy packages.
