Only the best is good enough

ASDA sparked a worldwide hunt for a special type of vanilla when they approached Arla to produce new high-class Crème Anglaise custard.

"Our ASDA contact insisted on using the best Madagascan bourbon vanilla and it took some doing to find exactly the right one," explained Dave Slaney, product development manager.

After several weeks of searching the internet and a host of specialist product listings, Dave, who is based at Arla's development plant at Holme upon Spalding Moor, East Yorkshire, managed to find an ingredient that the client was happy with.

"We had to put the finished product through a tasting panel at ASDA," he said. "They said straightaway that it was just like a chef would make."

After wowing judges at the BBC Good Food Show in the Birmingham, scooping a best new launch award, ASDA's Crème Anglaise went down just as well with custard connoisseurs across the country, following its national launch in November.

The product, made in Somerset by joint venture company Staplemead Dairy Products, has continued to notch up healthy sales after a good first Christmas.

Arla Foods UK plc is home to some of the UK’s leading dairy brands including Cravendale, Lurpak and Anchor. Processing approximately two billion litres of milk a year Arla continues to be one of the UK’s leading dairy companies and a supplier of fresh liquid milk and cream to the top seven retailers.

Over 2,500 daily deliveries are made directly to stores nationwide and Arla brands can be found across the dairy category. As well as the leader of the butter, spreads and margarine sector, and a major supplier of other added value products including flavoured milk and cheese, Arla continues to build working relationships with Arla Foods Milk Partnership, a unique group of dairy farmers, which supplies around 90 per cent of Arla's total milk requirements.

Behind this leading business is a team of circa 2,800 people across the UK located at our dairies, distribution centres and head office.