Being able to spot a developing trend is important in any facet of business and none more so than the sandwich trade. Michelle Knott reports on the booming business of street food, novel ingredients and local heroes
Premier Foods is in advanced negotiations with two potential buyers over the sale of its meat-free business, but has received bids from a number of parties, including “multinational food groups and private equity firms".
Demand planning accuracy at Lactalis-Nestlé Chilled Dairy UK has surged 10% to 85% over the past two years leading to a significant improvement in availability and a huge drop in waste in a category in which 70% of volumes are now sold on promotion.
Trade unions are seeking urgent meetings with bosses at Northern Foods and Greencore in a bid to clarify how the proposed £40m synergy savings will be extracted if the two merge.
Essenta Foods, the new business to be created from the merger of Northern Foods and Greencore, will be divided into four divisions with two bosses selected from each company.
While the proposed merger of Northern Foods and Greencore will inevitably mean job losses at both companies, it is unlikely to result in scores of factory closures, City analysts have predicted.
While the supermarkets have expressed “some interest” in the re-opening of the mothballed Fenland Foods factory, Northern Foods has been unable to secure firm commitments from any of them that would justify spending the £30-40m it would cost to make this...
Dr Oetker is selling its Onken yogurt brand to Swiss dairy giant Emmi Group and withdrawing its Dr Oetker-branded mousses and desserts from the UK market on the grounds that it lacks sufficient scale to make headway in the chilled ready-to-eat desserts...
“Did you know that most of the pies we sell at Peter’s have fewer calories than a supermarket sandwich with mayo?” says Peter’s new pie meister Neil Court-Johnston. “I wonder how many people realise that?”
Northern Foods is now contemplating selling its Fenland Foods factory in Grantham after using it as a testing ground for new technologies to be installed at its other sites.
Neil Court-Johnston has been named as the new md of the foodservice division at pie, pasty and sausage roll-maker Peter’s, five months after his controversial exit from Holland’s Pies.
Uniq has unveiled plans to tackle the £436m hole in its pension scheme with a deficit-for-equity swap that will deliver 90% of the company's equity to the pension fund.
A complex piece of financial restructuring that Premier Foods claims will further improve the health of its balance sheet has been greeted by City analysts as a “welcome step forward” for the heavily indebted company.
Willesden-based Jamaican pattie manufacturer Port Royal has developed a new range of premium chilled ready meals targeting shoppers looking for more authentic Caribbean cuisine.
Heinz appears eager to play down expectations, but the arrival of the Heinz Beans kilo-containing plastics Fridge Pack has fuelled speculation around metal’s future share of the ambient foods category – and around possible imitations.
Arla's lactose-free brand Lactofree is generating value growth of 37% year-on-year, bosses have revealed as the dairy giant unveiled a sharp rise in interim profits.
Kerry Group has posted solid growth in UK sales of chilled own-label ready meals and ready-to-cook products in the first half, “outperforming category growth rates”.
Surveys that compare salt levels in products of different weights targeted at different eating occasions and then single out individual firms for criticism are unfair and unhelpful, Marks & Spencer has argued.
Sales of chilled ready meals surged 8.4% in the year to July 11, while volumes shot up 14.4% over the same period, according to new data from Kantar Worldpanel.
Greencore has notched up a “very positive” set of summer trading figures, posting a 7% increase in sales to €281.2m in its convenience foods division in the four months to July 23, driven by strong growth in food-to-go and prepared meals.
Swansea-based ready meals manufacturer Ethnic Cuisine has finally closed for business less than three years after parent company Northern Foods acquired it.
Dual ovenable board trays look set to grab a share of the ready meals and other prepared foods markets, as performance improves and environmental and cost pressures mount.
Carbon dioxide will remain a niche refrigerant in food production in the short to medium term, although it is gaining ground in the food retail sector, according to experts at BOC Group.
Marks & Spencer's decision to introduce branded products into its stores is good news for its own-label suppliers, according to the firm making more than half of its sandwiches and most of its desserts.
Uniq is still a viable business despite the £400m+ hole in its pension fund, and it is “still plausible” that a solution will be found to enable it to trade its way out of trouble, analysts have claimed.
Greencore has announced plans to sell its Dutch convenience foods business Greencore Continental in a bid to reduce net debt and focus on its core UK and US operations.
Industrial action at Bakkavör’s pizza plant in Harrow moved one step closer today as staff voted overwhelmingly in favour of rejecting the firm's latest pay offer and pledged to conduct a strike ballot.
Danone finally ditched its Shape Feel Fuller for Longer yogurt because it could not get the taste right, but insists it still believes there is a market for products promoting satiety.
Chilled food giant Bakkavör has become the latest food manufacturer to become embroiled in a pay dispute that threatens to spill over into industrial action.
Hain Celestial will switch production from recently-acquired food-to-go firm Churchill Food Products from Nottingham to its larger facility in Luton, but insisted that staff would be “actively encouraged” to move to Luton “if they are able to do so”.
Danone has quietly dropped its hunger-busting Feel fuller for longer brand and pumped all available resources into promoting its Shape Zer0% fat-free yogurts instead.
Northern Foods bosses "have not and are not looking to sell" Holland's Pies, the firm has insisted following its controversial decision to suspend the pie maker's md.
An auction to sell off kit from Daniels Chilled Foods' soup factory in Hythe Road, London, kicks off on Wednesday (June 9) following the recent closure of the site with the loss of 40 jobs.
Southall-based sandwich maker Bream Foods has been fined £20,000 after pleading guilty to a string of offences from failing to tackle an “uncontrolled mice infestation” to washing salads in sinks lined with grease.
Müller Dairy UK has vowed to pursue automated solutions provider RTS Flexible Systems for "substantial damages" following the outcome of a UK Supreme Court verdict on a costly legal dispute.
Branded goods have driven an increase in the average number of items bought during each visit to Marks & Spencer, which is seeing "strong like-for-like growth in the original trial stores", bosses have revealed.
While margins in chilled ready meals manufacturing remain wafer-thin, factory closures in the sector have gone “some way” to rebalancing supply and demand, Greencore has claimed.
