Sugar wars lead to £34m sale of Napier Brown

SUGAR firm Napier Brown is being sold by its parent company Real Good Food for £34m after a chaotic year for the firms.

Napier, whose brands include Whitworths Sugar, Renshaw and R&W Scott, is being sold to French firm Tereos, a Lille-based manufacturer of sugar with over 12,000 co-operative growers.

Napier Brown sugar is packed in Normanton, North Yorkshire and Stallingborough, North East Lincolnshire.

The firm was hit by a pricing war with British Sugar last year, accusing the sugar giant of abusing its market position and withdrawing sugar supplies to its Yorkshire factories.

Despite improved trading in the second half, a trading statement from the beginning of the month said that Napier was still performing below expectations, though better than their “very poor” start to the year in 2014.

Real Good Food said that EU quotas for sugar were down, with quotas being cut in 2017 rather than the anticipated cut off point in 2020.

This decision has reverberated throughout the sugar industry, with Tate & Lyle, (along with British sugar the only remaining domestic sugar producers) reducing production, meaning the UK is now more dependent on imports.

Real Good Food said Napier needed “the direct backing of a powerful producer” to keep it going under such challenging circumstances.

Pieter Totté, executive chairman of Real Good Food, said: “I am proud of what we have achieved in building the Napier Brown business and expanding its customer base and developing its supply chain.

“However, the changes taking place within the European sugar market mean that the future of this business is best served by it becoming part of an international production group.

“This transaction will allow us to focus all our resources on the continued growth of our remaining businesses.

“I would like to thank the staff and employees for their contribution over the years.”