St Ivel md exits after flat results

Brian Cardy, managing director of St Ivel UK’s chilled foods unit covering brands such as Gold, Utterly Butterly, Shape and Golden Churn, has suddenly left the company.

It is not known whether Cardy, who had been a managing director of the chilled unit within St Ivel UK since 1993 and took responsibility for marketing, is leaving to go to another job. Cardy’s departure follows flat results for St Ivel UK and only a marginal increase in pre-tax profits to 67.5m for its parent company Unigate.

According to Unigate’s last set of interim results, operating profits for the half year to September 30 last year were down 1.4 per cent to 63.1m, compared with 64m for the same six-month period in 1997.

The company claimed that overall profits and sales for St Ivel UK were maintained at the previous year’s level, but did not give a breakdown of specific figures.

Unigate’s Fresh Foods division, which comprises St Ivel in the UK, St Ivel Foods, Europe, and Malton Foods, showed a decline in operating profit of 13.9 per cent from 31.7m to 27.3m.

Commenting on the departure, Kathy Cuddihy, corporate affairs manager, says: “Brian made a valuable contribution to the group.”

Cardy was involved in the development of the low-fat Shape yogurt and dessert range. He also oversaw the closure of St Ivel’s spreads factory at Hemyock in Devon last year and the transfer of production to Liverpool.

Operations director for chilled products Chris Thomas is to manage St Ivel chilled products until the company recruits a new managing director.