Dean Foods Co, a Dallas TX-based distributor of dairy products, has announced several organizational changes designed to enhance the company’s branded products strategy and to enable the company to realize additional manufacturing efficiencies.
These changes will create the Dean Branded Products Group, which will be responsible for marketing and selling Dean’s nationally branded products, and transfer all of the company’s private-label dairy products and all dairy manufacturing assets to the Dean Dairy Group.
Over the rest of 2003, responsibility for manufacturing, selling, and distributing Morningstar Foods’ dairy products will be shifted to the company’s Dairy Group. Morningstar will be renamed Dean Branded Products Group, and all of Morningstar’s manufacturing facilities for both branded and private-label products will be transferred to the Dairy Group, which will be a manufacturing and distribution partner for the Dean Branded Products Group.
Herman “Bing” Graffunder, president of Morningstar, has resigned, yet will remain with the company through July 1. The company has begun a targeted search for an individual to lead the Dean Branded Products Group.
Dean also announced its financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2003. Net income for the quarter was $63.2 million, compared with a loss of $29.6 million in the first quarter of 2002. First-quarter net sales totaled $2.1 billion, a decline of 4% versus first-quarter 2002.
