The UK food manufacturing company 2 Sisters Food Group is reportedly looking to sell its Irish fish company Donegal Catch at a €57 million price tag, according to The Sunday Times.
Owner of 2 Sisters Food Group, Ranjit Singh Boparan, is understood to have hired corporate finance advisers from Clearwater International to work on a sale of the frozen fish business.
The business catches, fillets and processes fish and is part of the 2 Sisters division Green Isle. Last month, Boparan sold the division’s brand Goodfella’s Pizza for £200 million to the Bird’s Eye owner Nomad Foods.
Nomad Foods recently said that it will keep all 430 jobs at Goodfella’s Pizza and the transaction is set to close by the end of next month. However, the company would not be able to acquire Donegal Catch on competition grounds.
Rise And Fall
Green Isle is one of Ireland’s largest consumer foods manufacturers, employing 750 staff. The company came with Boparan’s £342 million takeover and delisting of Northern Foods in 2011.
Often dubbed the ‘Chicken King’, Borporan is being forced to break up the food empire he built over the last two decades due to heavy debts after being hit by issues such as a chicken safety scandal and soaring inflation.
An undercover investigation by The Guardian and ITV last year revealed workers at 2 Sisters picking up chicken that had been dropped on the floor and putting it back on the production line and mixing older chicken with fresher birds.
Two weeks ago, the company announced the closure of three of its production facilities across the UK resulting in a potential 900 job losses, although it said that it would create 1,000 new jobs within its poultry supply chain.
© 2018 - Checkout Magazine by Kevin Duggan
