German food group Dr Oetker is to stop selling chilled desserts in the UK at the end of the year after selling its Onken yoghurt brand to Emmi.

When Dr Oetker yesterday (11 November) announced plans to sell Onken, chairman Richard Oetker said the disposal would allow the company to focus “on our core business – the production and distribution of desserts”.

However, Dr Oetker has decided to pull its range of chilled desserts from the UK and focus that side of its business on markets like Germany, France and Italy.

“In the rest of Europe, the desserts are well established but in the UK they are a bit small,” a Dr Oetker spokesman told just-food today. “We entered the UK via Onken and maybe 95% of the business was yoghurt – the rest was chilled desserts.”

In the UK, Dr Oetker will focus on its home baking and frozen pizza products. The bulk of the 21 staff at the company’s office in Leeds who worked on chilled desserts and Onken yoghurt will have the chance to switch to Emmi’s UK site in London, although two employees could be made redundant.

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