As big cheeses go, Mark Allen, CEO of Dairy Crest, takes some beating.

After all, thanks to Allen’s careful stewardship over the past 22 years, Cathedral City is now worth almost a quarter of a billion pounds.

In this year’s Dairymen supplement to The Grocer (to be published this week), we put Allen under the grill to answer the big questions on acquisitions, competitors, innovation and pensions.

But why him, and why now?

Well, it’s been a challenging couple of years for Dairy Crest

The recent merger of Arla and Milk Link and the acquisition of Robert Wiseman Dairies by Müller Group resulted in Dairy Crest being the only publicly listed dairy company in the UK – inevitably leading to questions over its future and its ability to out-manoeuvre its competitors. In our exclusive Dairymen Big Interview, Allen outlines what that future holds for Dairy Crest in the wake of those deals.      

Then there was the sale of Dairy Crest’s St Hubert French spreads business, from which it recorded a pre-tax profit of £51.4m, bolstering its coffers for potential acquisitions. There’s been much talk of what those acquisitions might be, and in our interview Allen gives the clearest idea yet of Dairy Crest’s direction of travel. 

And let’s not forget that incendiary milk price cut that Dairy Crest gave to farmers, with just four days’ notice, arguably providing the kindling for last year’s SOS dairy protests.

Allen’s take on it? When I interviewed him at Dairy Crest’s Claygate HQ, he was reticent at first: “I wouldn’t say that we sparked the summer of protests,” he said, but then went on to concede: “It’s true to say that we gave very short notice on a price reduction.”

And finally: “We did learn the lesson from last year; it’ll never happen again. Certainly as long as I’m sitting in this chair, it’ll never happen again. We’ve worked very hard over the last 12 months to rectify the situation – we signed up to the voluntary code, introduced a formula and worked very hard on communicating with our farmers about the challenges that the business faces and for want of a better word, the industry faces as well.”

It’s fair to say that Dairy Crest is on a journey, and you will be able to read all about it in our Dairymen supplement this Saturday. 

And if you’re a digital subscriber, you can get full access to our interview with Mark Allen now – five days ahead of the print publication. Just click here and log in with your subscription details.