Associated British Foods acquires Chippenham's National Milk Records for £48 million

By Peter Davison

6 June 2023

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Retail giant Associated British Foods has agreed to buy Chippenham-based dairy technology firm National Milk Records for £48 million.

Primark owner AB Foods said the deal would boost its agriculture-food arm AB Agri, which works with more than 2,000 UK dairy farms and employs 3,000 staff across 80 countries.

Last month NMR, which provides milk recording and cow health monitoring services to farmers and the dairy industry, posted an increase in profits of a shade over 15 per cent to £6.482 million for the quarter ending March 2023.

AB Foods – which owns household names including Twinings, Ovaltine, Kingsmill, and – Jordanshas agreed to pay 215p a share for National Milk Records.

Trevor Lloyd, Chairman of NMR, said: "I am pleased to announce ABF's intention to acquire NMR. ABF's and AB Agri's status within the UK agricultural sector and expertise in the dairy industry will provide a significant benefit to NMR's customers.

"As the UK dairy supply chain continues its drive to carbon neutrality, NMR's work with GenoCells and milk data, and our pivotal role in payment testing, will contribute important information to aid in this transition.

"The backing of ABF will accelerate and de-risk NMR's ability to deliver its strategic objectives, streamlining industry processes by creating a holistic business that can provide end-to-end data and analysis to ensure the long term sustainability, efficiency and profitability of UK dairy.

"The NMR team looks forward to working as part of ABF and AB Agri to further position NMR as a leading player at the centre of the UK dairy industry."

José Nobre, Chief Executive of AB Agri, said: "I am delighted to be announcing AB Agri's intention to acquire NMR. NMR is a high-quality business which is extremely complementary and additive to our dairy strategy and offering to the dairy industry.

"We have supported dairy farmers for more than 30 years with nutrition and specialty feed products, and more recently with data and technology platforms which deliver insights that create continuous improvement in agricultural supply chains.

"Acquiring NMR is an extension of this strategy and will enable us to service the industry better, offering products that deliver increased value, efficiency and ultimately profitability for dairy farmers.

"NMR has assembled a strong team and we are excited by the prospect of working together with them to accelerate the development of the business."

By Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country.

An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts.

Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.