Overview

From our origins in the canned food industry, Premier Foods has continually expanded and acquired new brands to the point where we are now the largest food manufacturer in the UK and our products can be found in every British kitchen and on every British table.

Hillsdown Holdings was acquired by Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst in 1999 and subsequently renamed Premier Foods. The business under private equity ownership initiated a strategy to acquire British brands.

The acquisition of Nestlé's ambient food business in 2002 brought favourites like Branston, Crosse & Blackwell, Sarson's and Sun Pat into the fold and established Premier Foods as one of the country's leading food manufacturers.

In July 2004, Premier was floated on the London Stock Exchange, with an initial market capitalisation of £526 million.  Since the flotation, we have pursued our strategy of organic branded sales growth combined with improved operating efficiency and further acquisitions. In 2005 we acquired Birds custard and Angel Delight to re shape our desserts portfolio.  In the same year, we became leader in the meat free market following the acquisition of the meat alternative brands Quorn and Cauldron.

2006 saw our most ambitious acquisitions up to that point.  In August we completed the £460 million acquisition of Campbell’s UK & Irish business, adding OXO, Batchelors, Homepride and Fray Bentos to our product range.

The latest piece of the jigsaw fell into place in March 2007 when Premier Foods completed the £1.2 billion acquisition of RHM along with many of the UK’s best known food brands including Hovis, Sharwoods, Cadbury cakes, Bisto and Mr Kipling.  Our top ten brands alone now have a retail value of over £1.2 billion.  They are: Hovis, Mr Kipling, Quorn, Sharwoods, Cadbury (under licence), Bisto, Branston, Ambrosia, Loyd Grossman and Batchelors.