Haskins, Christopher Robin (1937– )

Irish industrialist, who turned a local family dairy into Northern Foods, one of the UK's largest quality suppliers of own-label products to the food retailing industry. A life peer since 1998, he has worked as an adviser to both the UK and Irish governments.

In 1962 Haskins joined Northern Dairies, a business started by his father-in-law on Spalding Moor in 1937. Appointed to the board in 1967, he later became deputy chair of Northern Foods (the company having been renamed in 1972) in 1974. He took over the chairmanship from 1987 until 2002.

During the 1970s Haskins made a string of acquisitions in the food sector, which included Fox's Biscuits, Pork Farms, and Dorset Chilled Foods. His key strategy was to link up with Marks & Spencer, becoming its largest supplier of ready meals (and later with Tesco and Sainsbury). Express Dairies, acquired in 1991, became a major supplier of milk to supermarkets, as doorstep deliveries declined following the deregulation of the dairy industry in 1994.

Born in Dublin, Haskins grew up in County Wicklow, and graduated in 1959 from Trinity College, Dublin, with a BA Mod. His early career took him to England, where he worked for Ford Motor Co. in Dagenham, Essex.

Haskins was created a Labour life peer by Downing Street in 1998, but was later expelled from the party in 2005. A former member of the Culliton Group, set up by the Irish government to review industrial policy, he held two positions with the UK government as chair of the Better Regulation Task Force and as a member of the New Deal Task Force. He also served as a member of the board of the Yorkshire Forward Regional Development Agency from 1998–2008 and has been chairman of the Council of the Open University since 2005.