Meadow Foods has its origins in a dairy business attached to the family farm at Marlston Court. In 1992 the milk supply business was sold to Express Dairies and Bodfari, later to become Meadow Foods, was born.

This January Meadow Foods bought Cumbrian-based West Lakes Dairy Park, doubling the size of its milk business.

“We’re still looking for acquisitions that give us the raw material to work with,” said Deakin.

Deakin started his career as a chartered accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Manchester before starting a 20-year stint as an investment banker with Rothschild and NatWest.

In 2000 he became a consultant, and one of his projects took him into the dairy industry when he worked with Bank of Scotland at Wiltshire business United Milk.

In 2004 he was asked by Meadow managing director Simon Chantler to become chairman of Meadow. Deakin, who had property interests and continued his consultancy work, was not expecting to go back into full-time employment – but in 2006, when Mr Chantler suggested they swap roles, he jumped at the chance of becoming managing director.

MEADOW has just opened its new £500,000 temperature-controlled butter warehouse, allowing it to store butter onsite instead of shipping it to Shropshire for cold storage.

The move means Meadow saves cuts its road miles by 43,000 a year.

Deakin is planning a £2m warehouse at the site, , potentially creating 25 jobs, but says getting approval for such a development in a rural area is a slow process.

“Currently a lot of our products are stored offsite at a third party, and we want to bring that onsite,” he said.

“We’re having a few little difficulties with planning. We’re in green belt here.”

If Meadow Foods is to keep growing, then it needs a guaranteed supply of milk. Deakin is trying to recruit more farmers, but as the UK dairy industry continues to contract, his job could get harder.

The number of dairy farmers in the UK has now fallen below 10,000 for the first time as many farmers leave the industry. The price of milk has risen in recent months, but farmers still feel at the mercy of supermarkets and their buying power.

Tesco, for example, recently launched “Fresh ‘n’ Lo” milk at £1.06 for a two-litre carton, compared to the usual price of £1.42. Other retailers followed, and, though they all insisted they rather than farmers would absorb the cuts, the National Farmers’ Union said the move was damaging to farmers’ confidence.

Deakin says his priority was securing long-term contracts with farmers, guaranteeing both stability for the producer and milk supplies for Meadow.

The milk industry is globalised like any other, and Deakin says international affairs do affect his little corner of Cheshire.

“Consumption of dairy products continues to grow at a rate a bit higher than GDP growth around the world,” he said.

The drought in Australia had contributed to world shortages of milk. “The balance between demand and supply is a fine one. You cannot increase milk production overnight,” he said.

Some analysts have told Deakin the food industry is recession proof, but he says he remains cautious about the wider economic outlook.

His customers, however, keep telling him the pressure from retailers to cut prices is growing.

“If retailers put up the price of milk, people will pay it,” he said. “But they’re desperately competing for market share so they don’t want to be the one that charges 1p more.”

Deakin says he wants Meadow to keep growing its profitability so it can give farmers a good price for their milk. That, he says, creates a virtuous circle as more farmers will sell to Meadow and so Meadow can produce and sell more of its products.

“Your best sales and marketing tool is a happy farmer,” he said. “They’ll go and tell their mates about you.”

Q&A

Home: Paul Deakin, 49, lives in Staffordshire.

Highest educational qualification: Chartered accountant, and BSc in mathematical economics from the London School of Economics

Proudest achievement: Climbing 21,000ft-high Mera Peak in Nepal

Outside work: Mountaineering, skiing, diving and riding

Unfulfilled ambition: Too many to mention, whether in work or mountaineering.

Best advice: If it’s too good to be true, it probably is. I learned that in investment banking.

alistairhoughton@dailypost.co.uk