'Great' advert boosts Dairy Crest

Dairy Crest has said its Country Life butter has the edge over rivals

A "Great British Butter" advertising campaign fronted by former Sex Pistol John Lydon has given Country Life the edge over rival Anchor for the first time, the brand's owner Dairy Crest claimed.

The company, which also sells Cathedral City cheese and Frijj flavoured milk, said Country Life was the UK's fastest growing butter brand and had overtaken Anchor in terms of value of market share.

Dairy Crest said all five of its key brands continued to perform well after benefiting from high levels of advertising and promotional spend.

It added that Cathedral City remained larger than the next three Cheddar brands combined, while St Hubert Omega 3 spread continued to gain market share and Clover had increased its slice of the butter, spreads and margarine market.

Dairy Crest said Frijj continued to go from "strength to strength" and now held over half the total flavoured fresh milk category.

The company added that sales of milk to major retail customers were up by 10% on last year, while 100,000 of its 1.3 million household customers have registered to use its internet delivery service called milk&more.

It plans to market the service to new customers in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Dairy Crest said it had completed consultations with staff about the proposed closure of the company's final salary scheme to future accruals, having closed the scheme to new members in 2006.

It expects to conclude discussions with pension trustees in the next month, before detailing the new arrangements for members. Dairy Crest said the move was necessary to further reduce risk associated with the scheme.

Barclays and building firm Costain have made similar moves in recent months.