Dairygold Co-op recorded healthy profit growth in its UK dairy ingredients business last year. Accounts recently filed for Dairygold Food Ingredients UK report the business saw a 15% increase in pre-tax profits in 2018 to £1.3m (€1.5m).

Operating profits in the business increased 13% to £1.9m (€2.2m), as operating profit margins widened from 1.5% in 2017 to 1.7% last year. Dairygold said the increase in profits last year was due to lower operating costs. The accounts show administration costs for Dairygold’s UK business were down 4%, or almost £0.5m (€0.6m), last year.

Dairygold Food Ingredients UK saw its turnover increase a modest 1% last year to £114.4m (€133m). This was mainly due to higher prices for dairy commodities. Dairygold operates from two facilities in the UK, located in Leeds and Crewe, supplying formatted cheese solutions to the UK’s ready meals and food manufacturing sectors.

The Leeds facility is the largest soft cheese manufacturing site in the UK, while the Crewe facility is able to process close to 25,000t of cheese per annum.