UK was Uniq 'disaster'

Uniq's 2004 purchase of Northern Foods'loss-making Minsterley desserts factory was a "colossal mistake", according to one City analyst, and its new devolution strategy highly risky, said another.

Speaking as Uniq scrapped plans to close its Evercreech desserts plant and transfer production to Minsterley, one analyst told Food Manufacture: "The whole point of buying Minsterley, which was operating well below capacity, was to use it to consolidate production from other sites. But there are obviously so many operational problems there that the management believes this will just lead to more disruption. It's a complete mess - a botched acquisition."

Uniq, which recently appointed Geoff Eaton as its chief executive, last month announced another major reorganisation of the UK division, which would result in 7590 job losses. At the same time, it said plans to close Evercreech had been axed. Instead, six "profit-accountable, entrepreneurially led, customer-focused business units" would be created.

Panmure Gordon analyst Justin Scarborough said that the UK had proved to be "one big disaster area for Uniq" and added: "I can see why they might think that a more entrepreneurially driven company might be more effective. But it's risky.

"They are devolving power away from the centre when everyone else in the industry, like Greencore and Northern Foods, is doing precisely the opposite.

"However, putting all the businesses into silos makes them easier to sell off in future to management buyout teams if the company is broken up."