Kettle Foods’ US owner, Diamond Foods, has taken full ownership of Metcalfe’s Skinny by acquiring the remaining 74% of the business it did not already own.
Diamond picked up a 26% stake in the premium popcorn brand in January, in a transaction thought to be worth more than £3m.
Kettle Foods – which earlier this year reported that it saw UK sales decline 5.5% to £79.4m in the year to 31 July 2015 – said taking full ownership reflected its ambition to evolve into a more broad-based premium snacking company and further extended the company’s ‘better-for-you’ strategy of healthier snacking.
Metcalfe Skinny’s value sales sit at £12.7m, having risen by 48.1% [IRI 52 w/e 27 February 2016]. Kettle Foods managing director Ashley Hicks described the business, which also produces corncake and ricecake products, as “incredibly innovative”.
The popcorn maker’s co-founders, Julian Metcalf and Robert Jakobi, said they were “very excited” about “a unique opportunity to bring the best brains in snacking together…to truly give Metcalfe’s Skinny the international opportunity it deserves”.
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