Timeline tracks Premier Foods’ businesses over last decade

However, in this interactive timeline FoodManufacture.co.uk does its very best to highlight the key mergers, acquisitions and disposals at the UK manufacturer since it bought the Ambrosia rice pudding and custard brand for £106M in December 2003.

Most recently, Premier Foods sold its pickles and sauces business to Japanese food manufacturer Mizkan for £92.5M in February.

The sale included Branston sweet pickle, ketchup, relish, salad cream and mayonnaise, plus the company’s Bury St Edmonds factory in Suffolk.

Eight disposals ​

This was the latest in eight disposals since February 2011 including Quorn, Brookes Avana and Premier Foods’ spreads and jellies business. To find out more about these, and the other disposals, click on the interactive timeline below.

To get all the information regarding one of Premier Foods’ mergers, acquisitions or disposals, as well as links to the original story, click on the timeline.

Zoom in and out using the bar on the left-hand side, or click on the plus tabs at the bottom of the timeline, to make sure you don’t miss a single story.

Perhaps the biggest bit of business at Premier Foods, in the last 10 years, came when it spent £2.2bn buying RHM and the UK Campbells businesses in March 2007 and June 2006 respectively.

‘Little to cheer about’​

Credit Suisse said that there had been “little to cheer about”​ since the businesses were put together, highlighting a 90% fall in the share price as a summary of what went wrong.

Since 2012 Premier Foods has focused its intentions on its eight power brands: Hovis, Mr Kipling, Bisto, Oxo, Ambrosia, Batchelors, Sharwood’s and Lloyd Grossman.

Last month, Premier Foods’ chief executive Gavin Darby said the firm would continue to develop its Power Brands and deliver a further £10M of cost savings in the second half of the year.

Disposals this year have allowed the firm to cut net debt from £950.7M at the start of the year to £890.4M.