Meadow creams-off Nene Valley
NORTH WEST dairy foods producer Meadow Foods has bought a £25m turnover packaged cream business.
Chester-based Meadow, the UK’s leading independent dairy group, has snapped-up Nene Valley Foods, from the Dairy Farmers of Britain Processing, for an undisclosed sum, understood to be several million pounds.
The deal will take Meadow Foods’ turnover to £275m.
Nene Valley is one of the country’s major processors of packaged cream for the food ingredients market.
It operates from a freehold 2.5 acre processing site at Peterborough that can handle over 25,000 tonnes of packaged cream and produce a broad range of specialist products including sour cream and cultured ingredients.
The purchase will consolidate Meadow Foods’ position as the largest independent supplier of dairy ingredients to the food manufacturing industry.
Meadow will continue to operate the Peterborough site in addition to its existing manufacturing facilities in Chester and Yorkshire from which it supplies many of the UK’s leading food manufacturers with ingredients for products ranging from ice cream, soups, sauces and ready meals to bakery and confectionery.
Simon Chantler, executive chairman of Meadow Foods, said: “This is a strategic acquisition for our group.
“Our strategy is to develop our business to provide long term security of supply of critical dairy ingredients to the major food manufacturers in the UK. Nene fits into this strategy perfectly and provides an excellent platform to extend our customer base and product offering in the high service area of fresh value-added ingredients”
Meadow handles 420m litres of milk and over 80,000 tonnes of cream each year from a network of 400 farmers nationwide.
The deal was completed late on Tuesday led by out-going managing director Paul Deakin, 50, formerly one of the leading figures in North West corporate finance.
He said: “I’m moving to a non-executive position in the company and this was my swansong. It is a good deal for us – it’s a good business which has been struggling as part of a group that has a lot of problems. The team there has done a good job with it.”
