The site, which already employs 124 people, is expected to take on the extra staff from next month, and a spokeswoman told Foodmanufacture.co.uk: “Our top-selling Cheddar, Cathedral City, is enjoying great success and we are devising an innovations programme to continue with that.”
Local press reports suggested that the staff would be taken on because Dairy Crest (the subject of recent City takeover talk ) had won business to pack a new children’s cheese snack, due to launch in the multiples later this year.
Exclusive contract
Frome operations manager Tracie Graves said that the firm was looking for more than 80 administration, managerial, technical and production staff.
“We are looking to take on four teams on each of the lines we work. This contract is exclusively for the Frome site. We hope to employ as many local people as we can,” she said.
The factory packs 40 million packs of cheese and cheese snacks each year but the new contract will increase that figure to 50, Dairy Crest confirmed.
Dairy Crest bought the Manor Road factory from Mendip Dairy Packers in 1996.
In its late March trading update Dairy Crest said that good performance in its cheese business had compensated for more challenging trading in spreads and dairy products. It reported pre-tax profits in line with expectations for the year ending March 31 2011.
Trading in its fourth quarter had remained strong, it said, with more milk to the major supermarkets over the year, and a contract win to supply Tesco.
Dairy Crest said its strategy involved growing sales of its brands and other added-value products and controlling costs: annual savings were ahead of the start of year target of £20m despite rising input prices.
All five of its key brands – Cathedral City, Clover, Country Life, St Hubert Omega 3 and Frijj – had increased sales this year and it had also increased sales through its doorstep delivery internet channel, milk&more. A consistent commitment to advertising was key to this improvement, it said, and it had again increased expenditure in this area.
