Müller UK & Ireland is making a major play for the UK butter market with the launch of its first retail butter packs.
The 250g retail packs launched on 21 May, with branded Müller Wiseman Black and White packs going into c-stores (rsp: £1.49) and own-label packs going into the mults, a Müller spokeswoman said.
Made from 100% British cream sourced from Red Tractor farms, both the salted and unsalted variants are certified kosher, and the unsalted variant is also halal approved.
The company has been churning out block butter for the food processing sector from its £17m butter processing plant in Market Drayton since December 2013, but this is the first time it has targeted the retail market.
Müller Wiseman Dairies MD Carl Ravenhall said the move was part of a strategy to add value to “every drop” of milk produced by the dairy processing business, which generates more than 90 million litres of excess cream each year. “Investing in our butter offering means we now have much more flexibility and opportunity for innovation and expansion in how we add value to this cream.”
He claimed Müller’s investment in butter would also help address the UK dairy trade imbalance by displacing imported products with those made using cream from British farms.
Müller is planning to launch further butter products for foodservice in due course.
“We are ambitious for the future of British butter, and see a range of opportunities for us in the pipeline,” said Ravenhall.
Butter is continuing to outperform spreads and margarine, with block sales up 2.5% and spreadable sales up 8.2% last year in volume terms. In contrast, dairy spreads sales fell 10.2% and margarine sales fell 7.5% [Kantar Worldpanel 52 w/e 1 March 2015].
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