Focus shifts from milk to nutrition

ANALYSIS: Quiet but assured confidence was the mood among Glanbia's management team yesterday, as it presided over results that, against the odds, succeeded in pleasing the market.

Debt is down, profits are up (albeit after exceptionals) and the company is rapidly repositioning itself to give customers exactly what they want.

With characteristic understatement, group managing director, Mr John Moloney, said he expected Glanbia to make good progress in 2003.

Central to development will be a planned investment of up to €100 million in the international nutritional business, which is designed to buy Glanbia a stronger position in the highly-lucrative market for health-oriented consumer products.

Last year, this division rescued Glanbia's US food ingredients business from serious decline, as it worked to cancel out troubles in the cheese market.

There was every suggestion yesterday that nutrition is also likely to become an increased focus for Glanbia's Irish operations, where a chain of products enhanced with unpronounceable cultures and vitamins is to come to the market this year.

Management would no doubt be happy to shift the spotlight away from the perennial challenges of the domestic dairy market, where they admit milk prices are once again likely to raise the ire of farmers.

Mr Moloney and his colleagues have been careful not to issue an open-armed welcome to blueprint plans for major consolidation in the market, but equally have not ruled it out as they acknowledge the continuing weakness of the dairy market.

Their reaction comes days after Kerry Group chief executive, Mr Hugh Friel, took a similar line and is likely to be of significant interest to policy-makers who are seeking to shift the dairy industry on to a new competitive footing.