Greencore pours millions into US frozen food-to-go

26-Feb-2014 - Last updated on 26-Feb-2014 at 11:31 GMT

Coveney: 'An important step forward'

Greencore has invested millions of pounds in US frozen food-to-go manufacturing as it seeks to build on its success in the market.

The convenience food firm is pumping the cash into its Jacksonville facility in Florida and the acquisition of food-to-go manufacturer Lettieri’s. The move reflects Coveney’s comments earlier this year about the potential of food-to-go.

Lettieri’s makes products for the US convenience store channel. It operates from a modern, purpose-built facility in Shakopee, Minnesota and employs approximately 130 staff.

For the year ended March 2013, it generated revenue of $36.4M (£21.9M) and attributable pre-tax profit of $4.7M (£2.8M). Greencore said it was funding the deal from existing debt facilities and expected it to generate modest profit in the current financial year.

Lettieri’s products are manufactured frozen but served hot via roller grills and heated cabinets. They include assembled products such as breakfast sandwiches, extruded products such as stuffed baguettes and breadsticks and enrobed products such as wrap dogs for roller grills.

£6M investment in Jacksonville

Greencore has also confirmed a $10.0M (£6M) investment in its Jacksonville factory to create the capability to make frozen food-to-go products.

The company said the investment would provide the capacity to support up to $100M (£60M) of revenue in lunch and breakfast products designed to be eaten hot. It added that it hoped the first such products would hit the market in the final quarter of the 2014 financial year.

“We have been working since 2011 to build a focused, growing, food-to-go business in the US,” said Greencore ceo Patrick Coveney. “Today’s announcement represents an important further step on that journey.

‘Widen our product range’

“Both the Lettieri's acquisition and the capital investment into Jacksonville deepen our manufacturing capability and widen our product range to more fully serve the food-to-go needs of our customers in the small store channels.

"Both investments are consistent with our long-term approach of developing high quality manufacturing facilities to meet the specific growth strategies of our key US customers.”

In its annual results to December 27, 2013, Greencore reported US revenue up 26.2% over the previous year in constant currency terms. Coveney told FoodManufacture.co.uk exclusively in December it was targeting US sales of $0.5bn to $1bn by 2019.

The company employs more than 11,000 people in the UK and US.