Boparan offloads frozen pizza empire in £200m deal

Ranjit Boparan of 2 Sisters

The Birmingham-based food group owned by entrepreneur Ranjit Boparan has offloaded its frozen pizza business in a deal worth £200m.

Boparan Holdings, the parent company of 2 Sisters Food Group, said it had agreed terms to sell the frozen pizza businesses within Green Isle Foods to Nomad Foods.

Green Isle Foods is Ireland’s largest frozen food producer and is headquartered in Naas, Co. Kildare. Nomad Foods is Europe’s largest frozen food producer and is headquartered at Feltham, Middlesex.

The deal includes the sale of brands such as Goodfella’s and San Marco, as well as the ongoing supply of private label frozen pizza contracts to UK & Irish retailers.

The frozen pastry, frozen vegetable and frozen fish parts of Green Isle Foods businesses, which include household brands such as UpperCrust, Green Isle and Donegal Catch will remain part of 2 Sisters Food Group.

The deal is expected to complete in early 2018.

Ranjit Singh, chief executive of 2 Sisters Food Group, said: “We are pleased to announce this transaction of our Frozen Pizza businesses.

“We have had approaches over the past couple of years for these businesses, and we have been talking to several interested parties during this period. But a sale had to be at the right time, with the right buyer, and it had to be a deal that fitted with our long-term strategy.

“This deal represents our first major step to transform 2 Sisters and build a better business.”

The net proceeds from the sale are intended to be used to repay debt and to invest in the group’s core businesses.

The deal comes amid further criticism of the 2 Sisters Food Group from MPs.

A parliamentary inquiry into food standards at the group was set up last year after a joint investigation by The Guardian newspaper and ITV uncovered poor hygiene operations at the 2 Sisters’ chicken processing plant in West Bromwich.

However, it has emerged that prior to Christmas, 2 Sisters sent unsolicited boxes of biscuits to several MPs serving on environment, food and rural affairs committee.

MP Neil Parish, the Conservative chair of the committee, said the recipients had considered the gesture inappropriate and an attempt to influence the committee’s impartiality.

He said the biscuits had been donated to charity or returned to 2 Sisters.

2 Sisters said the donations amounted to eight packets of Fox’s and own-brand biscuits. It said these were sent out each Christmas to external stakeholders as a goodwill gesture.

The committee is planning to hold further inquiries into the food group later this year.

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