Jackson pulls out of retailing to focus on manufacturing

William Jackson & Son plans to invest further in its core manufacturing operations and look for acquisitions, following the sale of its convenience retailing arm Jacksons Stores to Sainsbury for a reported £100m.

Jackson's joint md Patrick Farnsworth would not confirm the sale price but said the Hull-based company would use the cash to expand its Tryton Foods, Kwoks and Jackson's Bakery operations. The businesses are situated either side of the Humber and employ just over 1,000 people.

"It wasn't something that probably a year ago we ever expected to happen," he said about the sale. "We were quite comfortable in having a balance of businesses in retail and food manufacturing of own-label and brands. It was merely the opportunity came along."

Jackson's Bakery makes bread and sandwiches for catering and Kwoks is a chilled ethnic foods producer (Food Manufacture February 2004, p40). Tryton is a frozen food manufacturer which owns the successful Aunt Bessie's brand of Yorkshire puddings, now worth around £110m a year.

"We have been expanding them all hard and fast for some time," said Farnsworth. "Our vision is to grow [the Aunt Bessie's brand] to £250m by 2008-10."

A £5m extension to Tryton's Freightliner Road factory in Hull, including another Yorkshire pudding line, has already been approved, while at Kwoks, which was struggling to keep up with demand, a £2.5m expansion has just been completed. A virtual reconstruction of Jackson's Bakery began just over a year ago at a cost approaching £10m.

"Thereafter we are challenging our businesses to come up with any ideas they might have for expanding their operations and that might be by increasing existing facilities or acquisition," said Farnsworth. "We have a fairly open mind on it at this stage.

"We are under no illusions that it will probably be a very difficult task to acquire businesses at a price that you can then get a return on -- but I think we are pretty prudent Yorkshiremen."