medina watsons milk

Fresh milk and bakery supplier Medina Dairy returned to profitability last year on the back of improved financial efficiencies and new business wins.

Group revenue for the owner of the Watsons milk brand during the 52 weeks to 30 April rose by £4.1m to £160.9m, while group profit came in at £1.15m against a loss of £0.89m for the previous 12 months. EBITDA also increased, from £2m to £3.7m, Medina said.

Improved performance was down to “organic growth, new business wins and the full-year impact of new contracts won in the prior year”, said Medina CEO Sheazad Hussain, and came despite low dairy commodity and farmgate prices.

“Medina’s long term business strategy is focused on increasing our share of the fresh liquid milk market in the UK, in particular through supplying larger national retailers,” Hussain said.

He added that the acquisition of 100 million litres of toll-processing volume at Müller’s Severnside dairy (which was a condition of Müller’s purchase of the Dairy Crest milk division) provided Medina with “a strong base from which to accelerate the development of supply relationships with the major national retailers”.

Acquiring the Severnside capacity was followed by big own-label milk supply deals with Iceland and Sainsbury’s, and had provided Medina with “the necessary operational infrastructure to service the needs of major retailers”, added Hussain.

“We are delighted to have commenced supplying Iceland in the current financial year and that we will also start supplying Sainsbury’s from July.”