The Grocer Gold Awards 2026: The Grocer Cup

Winner: Alex Whitehouse

For Alex Whitehouse, joining Premier Foods seemed to be written in the stars. Back in 2014, while still working at Reckitt Benckiser, Whitehouse became nostalgic while driving past a Premier Foods factory and seeing large logos for the group’s portfolio of brands. Once cherished household staples, the lustre had long since worn off the likes of Bisto, Mr Kipling, Ambrosia and Oxo following years of under-investment. Whitehouse saw the potential for the stale offering to one day be refreshed and decided to invest in some shares in the undervalued group’s stock. Unbeknownst to Whitehouse at the time, the person who would end up being trusted with kicking off a long-awaited turnaround at the struggling ambient foods supplier would be him.

Shortly after making his prescient investment, Whitehouse was headhunted to take charge of Premier’s grocery brands division, bringing with him a wealth of commercial and marketing experience following 18 years with Durex and Dettol owner Reckitt. He quickly got to work turning around the fortunes of Premier’s former national treasures and, in less than three years, was promoted to UK MD in 2017. He introduced product innovations and new marketing campaigns for Angel Delight and Batchelors, and relaunched Mr Kipling to focus on its heritage. And the branded growth model strategy that has underpinned the transformation at Premier was firmly put in place. Brands stuck in long-term declines moved into growth. Whitehouse was rewarded with a move to the boardroom and named CEO in 2019, taking charge of more than 4,000 staff and 13 factories.

Whitehouse continued to lay the groundwork for moving from turnaround to outperformance. A landmark agreement to combine several bloated legacy pension schemes in 2020 put Premier on sound financial footing, and Whitehouse reintroduced dividends for shareholders in 2021 after a multi-year absence.

It wasn’t long before he returned Premier to the acquisition trail, with the takeover of The Spice Tailor in 2022, closely followed by deals for Fuel10K in 2023 and Merchant Gourmet in 2025.

In the latest financial year, Premier beat City expectations to post trading profits of more than £200m as branded sales increased 3.4% to £1bn, while debt leverage hit a historic low of just 0.4x.

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Tesco UK boss Ashwin Prasad said the Grocer Cup was “well-deserved recognition” for Whitehouse. “You have really led the Premier Foods business amazingly well over the past few years,” he added. “You only need to look at the sales and profit performance of the business to see what an incredible job you have done.”

Clive Black at Premier’s house broker Shore Capital said it was “a great award, a great achievement and, most of all, Alex is just a great bloke. It is one of the greatest achievements in financial improvement we have seen in a very long time of covering the British food system.”

Richard Hodgson, who was senior independent director at Premier when Whitehouse was appointed CEO, agreed he had done “a fantastic job building brands, leading the team by example and driving the share price from the lows of 30p to over £2. A fantastic performance by somebody who rolls his sleeves up and is well known to the team throughout all the different sites.” And it is not just financial performance that Whitehouse has transformed at Premier. He has also focused on making the portfolio healthier. After years of investment in reformulation, the share of sales from non-HFSS products moved from 53% in 2022/23 to 60% today.

Premier’s work with food redistribution charity Felix also falls under its Enriching Life sustainability strategy, with a five-year partnership signed in 2022 as the group aims to donate one million meals and half its food waste by 2030.

Kris Gibbon-Walsh, deputy CEO at Felix, said Whitehouse deserves “huge recognition” for being “a brilliant, decent human being and leader”. He added the Premier boss was always supportive, calm, thoughtful and action-orientated.