Pictured: Christoph Wenisch, CEO of Nöm International, who is overseeing the drive for growth of Nom UK

Nom UK has revealed exciting plans for extensive development of its dairy facilities with the aim of accelerating growth and winning an even bigger slice of the total short life dairy market, which is currently 'worth' around six billion pots a year.

The drive for growth is being overseen by Christoph Wenisch, CEO of Nöm International, who said: "Nom UK is uniquely placed to build its market share substantially through the opportunities presented by developing our UK manufacturing centre which uses British milk and local labour as well as sustainable production methods and offers significant carbon footprint reduction."

The company, which has achieved impressive growth through its strategy of focusing on the private label market, is entering the next phase of its development. It has announced plans that could see additional production lines introduced at the Nom Dairy plant in Shropshire, followed by a doubling in size of the operation, which currently employs 160 people.

Christoph said: "We have a clear strategy to increase our presence as a major player in the UK short life dairy market and extending the Nom Dairy plant at Telford will see us achieve that.

"There is extensive land on our 24-acre site available for the expansion and most of the base infrastructure is already in place to process the large additional volumes of British milk that will be required."

Christoph said that while Nom UK was growing organically it was also actively looking to establish a co-operation arrangement, with one or more partners, to enable it to accelerate its growth strategy.

"We are already engaged in discussions with three potential partners. At this stage we are open to what form that co-operation would take. The important thing is that it is beneficial to all parties involved and helps us develop our site more quickly," said Christoph.

"We will shortly be announcing our financial results, and while they will show an expected deficit in line with a new company that has invested major sums in opening a dairy plant we have every confidence our strategy will over time deliver attractive returns," he added.

Doubling the size of the dairy would enable Nom UK to ramp up production from 350 million pots a year to around one billion pots, he said. At the same time it would create about 200 new jobs. Longer term proposals could see the company expand even further, with capacity potentially growing to 1.5 billion pots per year.

Christoph said: "Development of brand new dairy facilities, with scalable and flexible capacity, will allow us and future partners to capitalise on the growing trend among UK retailers for locally sourced produce, along with generating the opportunity to produce at lowest cost.

"About three billion pots of short life dairy products are imported into the UK every year and one of our objectives is to make meaningful inroads into that market with UK retail partners."

Nom UK supplies private label and branded short-life dairy products to more than 90% of the supermarket retailers in the UK and Ireland. Its strategy of manufacturing products full of taste and full of natural ingredients sets it apart from most other manufacturers.

It is the UK operation of Nöm AG, the Austrian dairy company which has been making dairy products for 100 years. Nöm is majority owned by Raiffeisen Banking Group, one of Austria's leading banks.

Christoph emphasised Nom UK would continue to invest in its successful Nom brand, bringing out more innovative products, such as the recent launch of Breakfast yogurt. There is also potential for further development of a venture brand which it produces for one of its retail partners.

Over 50% of Nom UK's £70 million turnover at retail value is in private label and the rest is split between the 'nom' brand and the retailer's venture brand.

Christoph added: "To help us implement our new strategy we are looking to build our current commercial team and at the same time we will be looking for a new sales director."

David Potts, CEO of Nom Dairy UK, is working alongside Christoph but has decided to leave the business at the end of the year to follow other opportunities.

Christoph said: "We are very grateful for everything that David has done at Nom over the past few years. He has built a successful business with a strong customer base and we wish him well."