Greencore Group has acquired Freshtime UK, a supplier of food-to-go salads, chilled snacks and prepared produce, in a £56 million deal.
Freshtime’s products are distributed primarily in the grocery and convenience channels and the business operates from a single facility in Boston, Lincolnshire.
In the 12 months ended December 2018, Freshtime generated revenues of £66 million and profit before tax of £5.6 million.
Greencore said the acquired business’s customer base is highly complementary to its existing portfolio. Greencore already distributes a large proportion of Freshtime’s products.
“Freshtime is an excellent strategic fit for Greencore,” said Patrick Coveney, CEO of Greencore. “It is a business and a customer set that we know very well and it provides us with an exciting opportunity to enhance our product offering, add further capacity to our manufacturing network and help drive growth and value for shareholders. We look forward very much to welcoming the Freshtime team to Greencore.”
Headquartered in Dublin, Greencore has 16 manufacturing sites in the UK and employs 11,800 people.
On an annual basis, the company manufactures approximately 706 million sandwiches and other food-to-go products, 144 million chilled prepared meals and 226 million bottles of cooking sauces, pickles and condiments. It carries out around 7,500 deliveries to stores each day.
Last year, Greencore offloaded its US business to an affiliate of Hearthside Food Solutions for $1.08 billion as it now aims to focus on growth in the UK.
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