Yahoo Finance Branston Pickle Is Gobbled Up By Japan
Iconic British brand Branston Pickle brand is being sold to a Japanese firm in a deal worth £92.5m.
The proposed sale to Mizkan also includes other Branston products such as ketchup, relish, salad cream and mayonnaise.
Premier Foods (Xetra: A0B7GL - news) , which also owns Hovis, Mr Kipling and Bisto, said the sale would result in around 350 people who work at its Bury St Edmunds factory in Suffolk transferring to Mizkan.
The deal is due to complete early next year.
Mizkan, which recently acquired Premier (BSE: PREMIER.BO - news) 's vinegar brand Sarson's and pickles business Haywards, already has operations at Burntwood in Staffordshire and is a major supplier of rice vinegar in the UK.
Branston is named after the village near Burton-on-Trent (BSE: TRENT.BO - news) in Staffordshire where Crosse & Blackwell first produced it in 1922.
It sells an estimated 28 million jars a year of the pickled relish, which is made to a secret recipe.
Premier acquired the Branston business as part of its acquisition of certain Crosse & Blackwell operations from Nestle (BSE: NESTLE.BO - news) in 2002.
The disposal means debt-laden Premier will have raised £370m from the sale of a number of non-core brands, including Robertson's marmalade and Gale's honey.
It is also well ahead of its target of £330m by June 2014.
Sky's City Editor Mark Kleinman learned last week that Premier had drafted in Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS - news) to sound out buyers for its Hovis bread division.
