Stonegate is expected to complete a management buyout of the Noble Foods-owned business in weeks.

A team led by Stonegate MD Pam Corbett is to buy the egg supplier almost a year after Noble was forced to put it on the market by the Competition Commission.

In 2006, Stonegate merged with Deans Foods to create Noble Foods, making it the UK's biggest egg supplier. However, the commission ruled the arrangement would lead to substantially less competition. The deal, worth about £30m, is now in the final stages.

Former Kerry Foods director Michael Looney had previously been in the running to buy the business.