In The Grocer’s annual supplement ‘The Dairymen’ published last week, our own Peter Giørtz-Carlsen, Executive Vice President of Arla Foods UK, talked about his ambitions for the dairy cooperative. Peter believes that Arla’s strong market position, particularly in liquid milk and cheese, means it is well positioned to make the jump to ‘super brand’.
“We have spent a long time in the UK as a business, and over the past seven years have made great progress in establishing a strong platform,” he says. Arla has added value to its farmer owners’ milk through innovation and product development with the launch of Arla masterbrand this year and rapidly expanding the range of Arla-branded products in the UK market by launching yogurts and added-value lines such as Big Milk.
Everything Arla does, he says, “is about delivering the best possible milk price” for its farmer owners across Europe. “It’s our one KPI.”
This view of the business extends to farmer payments, with Peter stating that sharing milk payments across all its farmer owners across Europe milk is the “Arla way”.
As set out in the article, Arla will unveil a radical new strategy during the autumn that will set out the cooperative’s development over the next five years, including its plans to make the brand a top 10 food company in the UK by 2020. This, said Peter, will see it launch more products, “and you will see an Arla that is much more visible, and taking more risks”. He admits there are difficult times ahead for Arla’s farmer owners, but he is confident the opportunities outweigh the challenges in the long run. “We have been here before, and we know the market will have to recover at some point.”
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