Mellors loses Dairy Crest to Grey

Dairy Crest has ditched Mellors Reay & Partners and appointed Grey in an agency roster shake-up which also entails brand-swaps for lead agency Young & Rubicam.

Grey has won the Dairy Crest cheese account, worth an estimated 3m, from Y&R – the main brand is Cathedral City. But Y&R retains the 7m Clover account and will take over the Frijj milkshake account, worth an estimated 1m, from Mellors Reay which has handled it since 1994.

A Dairy Crest spokeswoman claims the annual advertising spend is 12m, including the Willow brand, and says: “As a result of the strong performance of Clover, we have decided to focus on the Frijj brand next and have given the task to Y&R. We have added Grey to the roster because we wanted to retain two roster agencies.”

The roster realignment coincides with the appointment of two senior marketers at Dairy Crest – both will report to marketing director Belinda Gooding. Jill Caseberry, head of marketing at master food services at Mars, joins as sector manager for cheese and milk products. Richard Tolley, a senior product manager for Northern Foods, will become sector manager for spreads and flavoured milk products, including Frijj.

There are no plans to review the media planning and buying account, which was centralised into John Ayling & Associates last year.

Operating profit for Dairy Crest’s consumer foods division was up 12 per cent to 30m on sales up three per cent to 475m for the year to March 31.