Dairy Crest milk business sale referred back to UK's CMA

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March 23 (Reuters) - Dairy Crest Group Plc said the sale of its dairy operations was being referred back to the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) by the European Commission for review.

Britain's largest dairy food company said the deal to sell the operations to Müller UK & Ireland Group remained on track.

"It has always been our preference for the transaction to be reviewed in the UK, so we welcome this referral back to the CMA as a positive step," Chief Executive Mark Allen said in a statement.

Dairy Crest (LSE: DCG.L - news) agreed to sell its loss-making milk business to the German food group's unit in November for 80 million pounds to focus on its profitable processed cheese and spreads businesses.

The company has been losing customers to supermarket chains, which offer cheaper milk than its door-to-door delivery service.

Dairy Crest said its cheese and spreads businesses, which will form the core of its operations after the sale is completed, performed robustly despite some challenges in the nine months to Dec. 31.

The company's shares were down less than 1 percent at 450 pence at 0815 GMT.

(Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi)