£80m For Sale sign on St Ivel

FOODS group Uniq today hung an £80m For Sale sign over its St Ivel yoghurts and spreads divisions as it wrestles to cope with spiralling debts and huge losses. On his 100th day in office, chief executive Bill Ronald said the two operations had to go if Uniq was to focus on its more successful UK and Continental salads, sandwiches and ready meals.

A number of buyers have opened talks with Uniq's advisers Lazard over the troubled yoghurts division, which includes the low-calorie Shape brand. The operation has been hit by the success of Muller and a delayed relaunch of Shape last year.

St Ivel spreads, whose Utterly Butterly, Golden Churn and Vitalite make it number two in its sector to Unilever, is in much better condition but does not fit with Uniq's new strategy, Ronald said. It will probably be sold separately. Discussions have not yet been opened with prospective bidders.

Uniq made a pre-tax loss of £115.2m in the year to 31 March against a £118.4m loss the previous year on reduced turnover of £1.4 billion against £2.35bn last time.

Ronald, dubbed The Man From Mars after his former employer, wants to knock the group's staggering £185m debt mountain down to £100m.

Uniq is the remnants of the old Unigate empire following the sale of the dairy operations to Dairy Crest and the demerger of its Wincanton transport division.

Cheesed-off monks in need of salvation

THE monks of St Ivel, who have been peddling the brand since 1901, were the product of the imagination of a Yeovil dairyman who invented them as a ploy to market his lactic cheese.

Current brand owner Uniq happily maintained a tradition that suggested farm freshness and an almost religious emphasis on dairy products. But the axeing of free school milk in the 1970s, the dwindling number of milk floats on the road and a yoghurt price war took their toll on the company, known as Unigate before it became Uniq.

It fought back with low-fat milks, cheeses and yoghurts but still failed to beat off growing competition. Now its debt burden has led it to put its faith in a sale of the mystical monks.