Hain Celestial has today (22 August) been announced as the buyer of Premier Foods plc’s spreads assets, including brands such as Hartley’s jam and Sun-Pat peanut butter.
The US food group had been linked to Premier’s spreads business, which is the latest asset sold by the UK manufacturer.
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Hain Celestial, which owns UK brands like New Covent Garden Soup Co. and Linda McCartney meat-free, announced the cash-and-shares acquisition as it published its annual results. Premier will be paid GBP170m (US$270.1m) in cash and GBP30m worth of Hain Celestial shares.
The deal is the second acquisition Hain Celestial has made in the UK in ten months. Last October, it bought Daniels Group, owner of brands including New Covent Garden Soup Co., Farmhouse Fare desserts and Johnson’s Juice Co. soft drinks. The brands were added to existing UK assets like Linda McCartney to form local subsidiary Hain Daniels.
Irwin Simon, Hain Celestial’s president and CEO, said the company had wanted to use the Daniels deal as a “platform” for growth in the UK.
“In order for Hain Daniels to become one of the largest healthy food companies in the United Kingdom, we needed to expand Hain Daniels base into ambient grocery where we can leverage Hain Celestial’s track record of success in the US and Canada,” Simon said.
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By GlobalDataHain Celestial plans to take on Premier’s factory in Histon in Cambridgeshire. The deal remains subject to approval from Premier’s shareholders and lenders, although Hain Celestial expects the transaction to close by the end of October.
The deal for Premier’s spreads assets was not the only UK-related announcement from Hain Celestial today.
It confirmed it had found a buyer for the own-label chilled ready meals business it had said it would offload. Greencore has bought an asset Hain Celestial described as “not a category leader” for its business.
