Arla Foods, one of the world's biggest dairy companies, has announced year-on-year growth in its UK retail and food service revenue.

The company, which has a base in Oswestry, saw its revenue grow from £1.79 billion to £1.94 billion with brands delivering the greatest revenue growth in 2017 including Lurpak growing by nine per cent; Anchor by 16 per cent and the Arla brand growing by 18 per cent.

Tomas Pietrangeli, managing director of Arla Foods UK, said along with the company’s recent £72 million investment in the UK business it shows Arla’s commitment to continue to further build the UK dairy industry.

It also signals the strength of Arla’s farmer-owned cooperative model - which has 11,200 diary farmers - 2,500 of who are in Britain - as growth is driven while balancing the challenges facing the dairy industry such as volatility in the global milk market, a weak British pound and Brexit uncertainties.

He continued: “Arla was both the fastest growing fast-moving consumer goods brand in the UK and the only leading dairy company delivering branded growth. We also saw significant wins in both foodservice and own label offering in 2017 such as the Morrisons’ fresh milk tender win. I believe that we are in a strong position to deliver on our 2020 Good Growth strategy.

“General health and food quality continues to grow in importance to the British public whether eating at home or out and about. The natural simplicity of our product ingredients, their ease of use for chefs and our farmer owned status is resonating with operators, particularly with quick service restaurants, coffee shops, pizza chains and pubs.”