The UK meat sector was facing significant change this week with the purchase of Flagship Foods by European giants Danish Crown.
The purchase of Flagship as a going concern by DC’s UK subsidiary Tulip will create one of the country’s largest meat companies with combined sales of close to £1bn.
Neither organisation is revealing the financial details.
The Flagship group is one of the UK’s leading meat suppliers and is made up of Roach Foods, Dalehead Foods, Flagship Fresh Meats and BQP Pig Farming Enterprise.
The purchase is currently awaiting competition clearance by the European Commission which could take more than a
month, a spokesman for the company said.
The new organisation, to be called Tulip Ltd, will stretch from farm to fork and include pig production, abattoirs and fresh meat operations, as well as bacon, cooked meats and other further processed products.
It will employ 7,000 people across 21 sites, A spokesman said that while it was not their intention to make redundancies, they would have a clearer idea once the deal had been cleared by Europe.
Carsten Jakobsen, present chairman of Tulip, will chair the new group with Graham Roach, chief executive of Flagship, becoming an executive director. Flagship’s chairman Tony Ambler will also join the board.
Roach said: “We have had a long and successful partnership with Danish Crown as a major supplier, so bringing these businesses together makes a lot of sense.
“In an increasingly competitive market it is crucial that we are in a position to produce quality products at the best price.”
Jakobsen said: “This is an important step forward for Tulip. We look forward to enhancing our working relationships.
Ed Bedington