Kerry Group has reached an agreement to sell its consumer foods’ meats and meals business in the United Kingdom and Ireland to Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation for a cash consideration of €819M.
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The meat brands include Richmond, Denny, Galtee, Fridge Raiders and Rollover. The meals business primarily serves the UK market and specializes in authentic ethnic chilled and frozen ready meals, multi-cuisine ready to cook ranges and home delivery meals under the Oakhouse brand.
The proceeds from the sale will be used for general corporate purposes and the continued strategic development of the taste and nutrition business.
Edmond Scanlon, CEO of Kerry, commented, “Kerry’s strategy for the past 30 years has been to continuously evolve our portfolio as we progressed on our journey to becoming a market-leading taste and nutrition company. This transaction further enhances Kerry’s focus as a leading business to business ingredient solutions provider for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical markets. Pilgrim’s is a global provider of high-quality food products and I am convinced they will make an excellent future owner of the Meats and Meals business. I wish to thank the 4,500 employees of the business for their contribution to Kerry over many years.”
Fabio Sandri, CEO of Pilgrim’s, commented, “We are pleased to have the opportunity to position Pilgrim’s as a leading prepared foods and branded products player through this acquisition. We look forward to welcoming Kerry Consumer Foods’ Meats and Meals business’ talented management team and other team members, led by Nick Robinson, to the Pilgrim’s family, and we look forward to working together to drive growth and deliver value for all of our stakeholders.”
Nick Robinson, CEO of Kerry Consumer Foods, added, “Our companies share a rich heritage in food production with aligned values that put people and customers at the heart of all we do. We look forward to working with our new colleagues to build upon the fantastic progress of these businesses and realize our combined growth opportunities as we enter an exciting new phase.”
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