Please see below our roundup of this weekend’s newspapers:
Restaurants
EU to ban olive oil jugs from restaurants
The small glass jugs filled with green or gold coloured extra virgin olive oil are familiar and traditional for restaurant goers across Europe but they will be banned from 1 January 2014 after a decision taken in an obscure Brussels committee earlier this week.
From next year olive oil “presented at a restaurant table” must be in pre-packaged, factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labelling in line with EU industrial standards.
The use of classic, refillable glass jugs or glazed terracotta dipping bowls and the choice of a restaurateur to buy olive oil from a small artisan producer or family business will be outlawed.
Sam Clark, the food writer, chef and proprietor of the award winning Moro restaurant in London, told The Daily Telegraph that the ban would stop him serving his customers specially selected Spanish olive oil in dipping bowls with bread when they are seated at their table.
“This will affect us. It is about choice and freedom of choice. We buy our oil, which we have selected from a farm in Spain, to serve our customers,” he said
“Yet more packaging is not going to be eco-friendly and will limit choice to more mass produced products.”
Mr Clark attacked the regulation as one that would kill off artisan producers and accelerate the demise in Europe of traditional ways of making and serving food, in favour of large industrial producers. “It is very upsetting. Haven’t they already done enough damage to artisan products?,” he said.
The European Commissions justification for the ban, under special Common Agriculture Policy regulations, is “hygiene” and to protect the “image of olive oil” with a measure that will benefit struggling industrial producers in Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal.
From the beginning of next year, Britain, which abstained during a vote of national food experts on the issues on Tuesday, must enforce the ban via local authority food inspections of restaurants.
Officials defended the ban as a protection for consumers who would know that they were getting a safe, guaranteed product with proper labelling of its origin and with tamper-proof, hygienic dispensers.
“This is to guarantee the quality and authenticity of the olive oil put at the disposal of consumers. The aim is to better inform and protect consumer. We also expect hygiene to be improved too,” said an official.
The idea that restaurant customers, who want to eat olive oil with their bread or to dress their food, could not distinguish between a fake product and the real thing was dismissed as patronising by Mr Clark.
“Customers aren’t stupid - they would be the first to know if someone was being dishonest,” he said.
The decision, which will be automatically adopted by the commission in next few days, has dismayed many officials who are concerned that a ban crafted to help industry will damage the reputation of the EU at a time of growing hostility to Brussels bureaucrats.
“This is sort of thing that gets the EU a deservedly bad name. I shouldn’t say so but I hope people disobey this ban,” said an official.
“It will seem bonkers that olive oil jugs must go while vinegar bottles or refillable wine jugs can stay.”
Responding to the ban, Martin Callanan MEP, the leader of the European Conservative and Reformist group, asked: “Is it April 1st?”.
“With the euro crisis, a collapse in confidence in the EU, and a faltering economy surely the commission has more important things to worry about than banning refillable olive oil bottles? They should be seeking to reduce unnecessary packaging,” he said.
The Daily Telegraph, Saturday
Gregg Wallace and John Torode on airport caviar, jet lag and finding holiday heaven
The idea of hurrying to the airport in the expectation of getting a good, affordable meal will strike many people as Mission: Impossible. Catering for air travellers - whether it’s a meal served in a plane at 30,000ft or in a terminal restaurant - is something that appears to have joined the ranks of the motorway service station fry-up or the once notorious British Rail sandwich as the butt of stand up comedians’ jokes.
But actually things aren’t as bad as we think, according to Masterchef’s Gregg Wallace and John Torode.The famous culinary judges have been hired by Heathrow airport to burnish the image of the London airport’s eating places.
John Torode admits that they have their work cut out. He recalls famous food guide publisher Egon Ronay once remarking that Heathrow airport was ‘a canteen that serves all-day breakfasts’: ‘That means that they cooked the eggs in the morning and then served them all day.’
Gregg Wallace describes their role as ‘part consultancy, part awareness raising’. ‘They wanted us to go round and experience their eateries with them and give some feedback, and possibly also show them where we think they might be missing a trick.’
The Mail on Sunday
Cafes
Mothercare cuppa
A fledgling chain of tea shops founded two years ago as a riposte to the espresso bar invasion has signed a deal with Mothercare to provide in-store outlets. Tea Monkey was set up by Tracey Bovingdon, who recently launched a franchise package. The first such store is expected to open in Southport in the next few months.
The Times, Saturday
Your secrets served up at internet cafes
Confidential personal information, including passports, bank details, court documents and the health data of vulnerable care patients, has been left on computers at internet cafes, an investigation by The Sunday Times has found.
A few minutes spent on pay-to-browse computers around the country uncovered a mine of sensitive, potentially damaging information left behind by customers.
Among the files were:
- Care worker documents containing the names, home addresses and disabilities of vulnerable people.
- A database belonging to a government-affiliated company, listing the personal details of unemployed 18-24 year-olds.
- A draft of an internal company report mentioning the cocaine habit of a prominent businessman.
- Details of child models used by John Lewis for in-store advertising - left behind by one of their stylists.
- Private legal documents belonging to a celebrity.
- Numerous passports, bank statements, plane boarding passes, visa applications and insurance claims.
- After being alerted to the findings, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has started investigating several companies for possible breaches of the Data Protection Act by their employees who had left information behind.
The Sunday Times
Pubs and clubs
In the Times Tempus column, Dominic Walsh asks if normality has finally descended on Mitchells & Butlers (M&B).
He writes: “After years of boardroom exits, revolving shareholders and a lacklustre financial record, it feels as though a relative calm has descended on the Harvester and All Bar One operator.
“Of course, it helps when you have a chief executive who - on the face of it - has the backing of the main investors. In his first outing in November, Alistair Darby insisted that his early dealings with Joe Lewis, the billionaire trader, and the racing tycoons JP McManus and John Magnier, together accounting for almost half the shares, had created ‘an alignment between shareholders and the board that may not have existed previously’.
“At the half-year results on Thursday, that harmony should enable Mr Darby to focus on progress towards the strategic, financial and operational goals set by him and the M&B chairman Bob Ivell. He will talk about things like training, staff turnover and branding, which may not set the pulse racing but will prove key to restoring M&B’s credentials.
“On the trading front, the cold weather has been a headache, although analysts reckon that like-for-like sales, down 0.3% after the first 17 weeks, should have sneaked into positive territory after 34 weeks amid strong food sales. Underlying pre-tax profits should improve from £68m to £71m, but the company will say that it is still too early to restart dividends. That may disappoint some, but Mr Darby wants to ensure that if M&B does resume dividends, it can continue to do so.
“Given the recent rise in the shares to about 400p, well above the 230p offered by Mr Lewis in his abortive raid in 2011, there are suggestions he might sell his 26% stake. Such a sale would bring further stability to the once-dysfunctional M&B. Hold.”
The Times, Saturday
Pub beats grub, guys
Single men spend more on alcohol than groceries. Their average monthly booze bill tops £200 but they spend just £160 on food, says a study of 18- to 35-year-old UK males. Shopping site vouchercodespro.co.uk, which organised the poll, said: “The pub culture is long established. But it is surprising the bar tab outweighs the grocery bill.”
The Sunday Mirror
Pub gloom deepens as Belfast nightclub put on market for just £300,000
A well-known Belfast nightspot has gone on the market with a price tag of £300,000.
Coral Inns, the former owner of Rain nightclub in Tomb Street close to the Cathedral Quarter, went into administration in August last year.
The business comes with a leasehold interest in the building, described by agents Osborne King as a “converted former bond warehouse” which can hold 520 revellers.
Coral Inns signed up to a company voluntary arrangement at the end of 2011 after running up debts with HM Revenue and a drinks supplier.
Earlier that year the firm was fined a total of £5,000 for breaches of its entertainments licence when it admitted three counts of overcrowding.
Belfast City Council’s licensing committee suspended Rain’s entertainments licence for seven weeks following the breaches.
The Belfast Telegraph, Saturday
Food trends
Poppadum glum
A poppadum shortage has left Britain’s curry restaurants and supermarkets in a real pickle.
The crisis has been caused by disastrous harvests of key ingredients.
The two biggest makers of Indian foods, Sharwood’s and Patak’s, have both struggled to keep up with demand. Major supermarkets have even put up notices warning shoppers of the shortage.
The crispy snacks, a favourite accompaniment to spicy curries, are made from either lentil or chickpea flour - and bad growing weather has swept Asia, where the crops are produced.
Waitrose apologised on shelf-edge labels to customers, saying: “Due to raw material issues, the supply of poppadums is currently limited across the UK.”
The chain added: “This is an industry-wide issue, which has meant we have lower stock than usual of poppadums.”
It said normal supplies were expected to resume next month.
Sharwood’s said it had experienced a “blip in production” due to ingredient shortages.
Its poppadums and Patak’s are made to different recipes. The main ingredient in Sharwood’s is black chickpea gram flour and in Patak’s lentil flour. It is understood poor harvests of both have affected supplies.
Sharwood’s said supply issues had now been sorted out and production was back to normal.
Britain’s poor wheat harvest, caused by 2012’s appalling weather, has also hit two major UK food producers this year. Weetabix had to halt production of Oatibix Bites and Minis, while Hovis was forced to abandon its vow to use only British wheat.
The Sunday Sun
Foodie alert: you’ve got to be kidding
It is the most popular meat in the world and far healthier than the leanest chicken breast. Yet goat has long failed to butt its way on to British menus. The nearest many will have been to goat is purchasing a curry at the Notting Hill carnival and feeling daringly experimental.
That is changing, with a clutch of top fine-dining chefs cooking with goat. In fact, farmers are struggling to breed enough goats to meet demand, with one breeder revealing that existing herds were too small to meet a recent request from Morrisons supermarket. “They’d need our yearly supply every day,” said Sharon Peacock, who chairs the British Boer Goat Society.
This weekend goat is on the menu at two popular London restaurants, joining caprine dishes at the capital’s champions of British fare St John and Quo Vadis, as well as at Manchester’s Michelin-starred Aumbry and the Epicurean near Bath.
On the Isle of Skye, Michael Smith from the Three Chimneys is a fan: he recently served a Boer goat tagine to win the main course category on BBC2’s Great British Menu and the meat is expected to be a “permanent feature in future series”. Chris Peacock, who supplied the meat used in the winning dish from his Lancashire-based Cockerham herd, has been breeding Boer goats for 13 years and now has 500. “We’re certainly seeing a lot more interest.”
Andre Dang, a food trend consultant, said yesterday that he had been served goat-meat burgers four times at last week’s judging for the Great Taste Awards, which culminates in the autumn when UK-wide winners are announced. “For the first time a lot of goat meat was entered,” Mr Dang noted, describing the burgers as having “interesting texture and an excellent, slightly gamey flavour”.
“Producers are obviously trying to get it into the mainstream,” he said, adding: “There’s very little fat, so they were more crumbly than normal dense and spongy burgers.”
The Independent on Sunday
Why we’re so much fonder of a fondue
Roast chicken or pasta tonight…or will you fancy a fondue instead?
The shared melted cheese dish, a Seventies dinner party favourite, is back in flavour.
“Baking cheeses” are the fastest growing sector of the cheese market with a 30 per cent rise in sales in the past year.
Tesco, where sales of traditional gruyere are up 15 per cent, said gastro-pubs reignited the trend by putting fondues on the starter menus.
Now Britons are sharing baked halloumi, mozzarella and feta at home rather than dining out.
Tesco’s Amanda Sankey said: “Fondue is fast becoming trendy as people experiment with retro dishes for a nostalgia trip.”
The Daily Express, Saturday
Tax
Tax avoidance from big global firms costs every British taxpayer £183 a year
Every British taxpayer is being cheated out of £183 a year as global giants including Google and Amazon avoid paying annual taxes of as uch as £5.5billion.
A Sunday Mirror analysis of company accounts, regulatory filings and figures from HM Revenue and Customs reveals the shocking extent of the scandal.
A massive £1.4billion of the shortfall, based on an estimated 30 per cent profit, comes from just eight companies which netted £18.2billion in UK sales, but only paid £33million in tax.
HMRC reports a huge additional £4.1billion from other corporations.
The deficit could pay for over 100,000 nurses, police officers and teachers.
The revelations come just days after Google was branded “devious, unethical and evil” by MPs who condemned the tactics used to avoid tax.
Latest figures indicate that Google avoided as much as £224million by paying just £7.3million in corporation tax on £3billion of UK revenue.
But in a heated debate at a Commons Public Accounts Committee meeting, Google vice-president Matt Brittin said any claim the company had been trying to disguise the way it operated was not true.
Accounts for Amazon for 2012 this week disclosed its tax bill amounted to £2.4million and is controversially offset by Government and EU grants of £2.5million.
The company has insisted it pays all applicable taxes in every jurisdiction it operates in.
Starbucks has paid no corporation tax on sales of £1.2billion.
Last December the coffee giant volunteered to pay £20million to the Treasury after a row over revelations it had paid no corporation tax here for three years.
Meanwhile eBay paid less than £1million in tax on sales of £800million.
Analysis of the corporate records of Apple reveals it may have saved as much as £550million in corporation tax on sales of £6.7billion.
Various legal methods are used by big businesses to cut their corporation tax bills.
But Labour will later this week pile the pressure on David Cameron over the issue before a speech by leader Ed Miliband to Google executives in which he will accuse some multinationals, who pay as little as 0.1 per cent in tax, of letting Britain down.
Mr Miliband and Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls want the PM to raise the matter when he meets Google chief Eric Schmidt tomorrow.
Mr Balls said: “People and businesses who pay their fair share have been shocked by how little tax some companies seem to pay in Britain.
“All too often companies that pay low taxes are doing so because they can bend the rules to their advantage.”
Tax expert Richard Murphy said: “By being cheated out of £183 each year the British people are being taken for a ride.
“We need a big politician to stand up to these companies.”
The Sunday Mirror
Hodge: Boycott ‘devious’ retailers
Labour MP Margaret Hodge has called for a boycott of “devious” retail giants that avoid paying their fair share of UK taxes.
Mrs Hodge, who chairs the committee of MPs probing tax dealings of the multinationals, revealed in an exclusive interview how she had already given up her Amazon Kindle. “And I don’t use Starbucks,” she said. “With Google, it’s very difficult to boycott it because of its virtual monopoly. It is ruthless, devious and unethical.”
Google has insisted its practices are entirely legal, claiming its sales are made in Dublin, allowing the firm to pay tax in Ireland’s corporation tax rate of just 12.5%, against Britain’s 23%.
The Sunday Mirror
Ed Miliband vows to curb corporate tax avoidance
Ed Miliband has vowed to rip up the rule book as prime minister and go it alone if there is no international consensus to tackle multinationals engaging in massive tax avoidance.
In an interview with the Observer, the Labour leader urged David Cameron to find agreement at the G8 summit of leaders next month around an ambitious agenda forcing corporate giants to pay their fair share.
He said that, if Cameron fails, he himself as prime minister would unilaterally act to make multinationals operating in the UK more transparent about the money they make here, the movement of cash around their corporate structures, and the justifications for the tax they pay.
He would also increase the resources of HM Revenue and Customs to strike at tax cheats.
Miliband, who will speak at a Google event in Hertfordshire on Wednesday, said he believed some multinationals, including the internet giant, were not living up to their responsibilities to society. Google was accused by MPs last week of being devious, calculating and unethical after it emerged that it paid just £3.4m in tax on £3.2bn of sales taken from UK customers last year as the sales were technically “closed” in low-tax Ireland.
Miliband said: “Now, what is the politicians’ responsibility: change the law. But it is also to talk about the kind of society we want to create and what the responsibilities of a company like Google are. I don’t think they are living up to their responsibilities at the moment, and I will be very clear about that on Wednesday.
“It is part of a culture of irresponsibility. If everyone approaches their tax affairs as some of these companies have approached their tax affairs we wouldn’t have a health service, we wouldn’t have an education system. And actually the point I will make at Google is that will undermine Google.”
Meanwhile Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, writing in the Observer, has given his first reaction to last week’s criticism of his company by MPs on the public accounts committee. He says tax avoidance is rightly a “hot topic” in difficult economic times and urges genuine reform, but adds: “Politicians - not companies - set the rules.”
But, in a major policy announcement, Miliband says a Labour government would engender a more responsible capitalism in the UK by changing those rules with or without international agreement. Miliband would:
¦ Pursue a new global system where multinationals must publish their revenues, profits and other key corporate information useful to revenue authorities in each country in which they operate.
¦ Force multinationals to publish such information in the UK even if international agreement cannot be found on the issue, as they do in Denmark.
¦ Make it a legal requirement for multinationals operating in the UK to disclose details of any tax avoidance schemes they are using globally.
¦ Seek reforms to “transfer pricing” rules to stop companies from shuffling money to other parts of their firm based in tax havens in return for spurious services.
¦ Open up the ownership of companies sited in Britain’s tax havens to the UK revenue authorities, but also seek to allow developing countries access to such information.
Miliband said the government was “dragging its feet” on the issue of tax avoidance. “They have got to act. If they don’t act, we will act in government. This is an absolutely massive and serious issue.
“I think it is a pro-business agenda to say that people should pay their fair share at the top. The head of a big British retailer came to me recently who was outraged by some of the things going on. He was saying he pays his taxes. The business world feels strongly about this.
“This has an impact on people in their daily lives. The less the big companies pay their fair share of tax, the higher tax others will have to pay, the worse the services they will receive.”
The Observer
Investment
Myners hits takeover trail with homeless billionaire
Lord Myners has resurrected his partnership with an investor known as the “homeless billionaire” to raise a £600m acquisition fund.
Platform Acquisition Holdings will target deals worth between £2.5bn and £4bn - giving it enough firepower to take over a FTSE 100 company.
It is the second time the former City minister has teamed up with Nick Berggruen, the American tycoon who is estimated to be worth $2.3bn (£1.5bn) and whose nickname is down to his living in expensive hotel suites round the world and not owning a home. In 2011, they set up Justice Acquisition Holdings, which took a 29% stake in Burger King.
Platform will be chaired by Myners, a former chairman of Marks & Spencer and Land Securities who also helped to co-ordinate the rescue of British banks during the 2008 banking crisis in his role as City minister.
Berggruen started off in property but he later co-founded and then sold Alpha Investment Management, a hedge fund, to the Brazil-based Safra bank in 2004. He now runs Berggruen Holdings, which has investments in the Karstadt department store in Germany and Keys Hotels in India.
They are joined on the board by Alain Minc, a former political adviser to Nicholas Sarkozy. Minc is also a former chief executive of Saint-Gobain, the building materials giant, and holds several other board roles, including a non-executive position at the fashion house Yves Saint Laurent.
A source said the involvement of Minc should indicate that Platform will not be solely focused on UK targets.
A source said the new deal machine would be “neutral to sector and geography” in terms of picking targets. However, Myners has previously indicated that he was looking to return to the property industry.
Cash shells have been controversial. Nat Rothschild, scion of the banking dynasty, was dragged into an ugly boardroom battle after a 2011 deal with the powerful Indonesian Bakrie family turned sour.
The Sunday Times
Fund managers fear for EU bonus cap
A group of fund managers has warned that pending European Union bankers bonus cap rules could damage a significant part of London’s financial services sector.
The New City Initiative (NCI), a group consisting largely of long-only fund managers, has said that a European Parliament vote in early June could have a number of unintended consequences on fund managers.
The NCI, whose members include Terry Smith’s Fundsmith, Fleming Family & Partners and Neptune Investment Management, has warned that the new rules will push independent fund managers into becoming “asset gathering behemoths” who are rewarded for size and not performance.
Dominic Johnson, founding partner of Somerset Capital who sits on the board of NCI, said that the idea to reduce risk through limiting performance-related pay was the wrong measure.
The current proposals, which will be discussed at a meeting of officials this week and voted on by the European Parliament in the week of June 10, would limit performance-related pay of managers to a maximum of one times base salary. It is possible the limit could be raised to two times salary.
Mr Johnson warned that the limit would simply push up base salaries and uncouple performance from pay. “All these caps and bans do is push the market more towards the asset-gathering behemoths and away from better-aligned, employee-owned firms, who are rewarded for performance not size.
“We want to change culture, not regulations,” he added.
The NCI has been liaising with the Treasury minister, Sajid Javid, and the Conservative group in the European Parliament to attempt to stop the measure being passed.
“Remuneration caps are particularly important as I want my managers to be incentivised and make money for my clients,” said Mr Johnson.
The comments came as major banks this weekend considered the possible impact of the European Banking Authority’s proposed bonus cap being applied to anyone earning €500,000 (£422,000) or more a year.
The Sunday Telegraph
Economy
Falling fuel and beer prices herald rare inflation drop
Easing pain for motorists at the petrol pump and Chancellor George Osborne’s Budget beer duty largesse should this week herald the first fall in inflation since last September.
The Bank of England’s Consumer Prices Index inflation benchmark is expected to ease to 2.6 per cent in April from 2.8 per cent in March as a 2 per cent fall in fuel costs contrasts with price hikes a year earlier. The effect of March’s 1p cut in beer duty should also feed through to figures on Tuesday, economists say.
April’s better news on the inflation front may, however, be a temporary respite as student tuition fees and sterling’s weakness conspire to push the cost of living higher once more.
In a television interview last night, the outgoing Bank Governor, Sir Mervyn said: “We are seeing a recovery. It’s only a modest recovery, and we certainly can’t be satisfied with it. We need to do more to use up the spare capacity, and to get back to a healthy, growing economy. But we are in a recovery period, I think.”
Attention will also fall on whether Sir Mervyn changes his stance on calling for more money printing when minutes of the latest policy meeting are published this week. The economy grew more strongly than expected in the first three months of 2013 and the bank expects growth to accelerate to 0.5 per cent in the current quarter.
The Independent on Sunday
‘£6bn’ cost of extra day off
The extra bank holiday for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee could have cost the economy up to £6bn in lost output, the Office for National Statistics said yesterday.
Its latest article suggested the celebrations last June would have reduced GDP by “0.3 to 0.4 percentage points” in the second quarter of 2012.
It was impossible to assess the precise impact of the Olympics, although ticket sales added 0.2 percentage points, the ONS added.
The Independent, Saturday
Retail
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Portas accused of ‘staging’ scenes in seaside showdown
Mary Portas has been accused of fabricating scenes in her latest TV show, in which she aims to save the ailing high street in a seaside town.
A complaint has been lodged with TV watchdog Ofcom following the episode of Mary, Queen of the High Street.
The producers of the Channel 4 series last night strenuously denied the claims but the fall-out has continued to be felt since the show went out on Tuesday.
The episode focused on Margate in Kent after it was selected as one of the Portas Pilot towns, a scheme which included a £100,000 hand-out from the Government.
However, when Portas and her crew arrived in the town, they met a barrage of opposition and got into a shouting match with members of Thanet Council’s “Town Team” over her plans to regenerate the town’s shops.
Local councillor Ian Driver said: “I think Margate is better off without her.”
Former Margate Town Team chairman Robin Vaughan-Lyons and vice-chairman Roxana Tesla, who lodged the complaint, said: “Far from being an accurate record of events surrounding Margate Town Team, producers Optomen have created, and Channel 4 broadcast, a fabricated storyline which runs contrary to what actually happened.”
In a statement, Channel 4 said: “Mary is passionate about her work to help reinvigorate the high street and the programme was made in that spirit.
“We strongly dispute that anything was fabricated. The programme is fair and accurate and fully complies with the fairness provisions of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code.”
The Sunday Express
Market bosses pitch their stalls at entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs and shoppers are being urged to support their local street markets in a campaign running until May 29.
Love Your Local Market will feature more than 2,200 events at more than 600 markets this fortnight.
It began last year in response to the Mary Portas Review on high streets and is run by the National Association of British Market Authorities.
Graham Wilson, the association’s chief executive, said: ‘Last year Love Your Local Market introduced almost 2,000 people to market trading and about 200 are still trading.
‘In 2013 we are aiming to attract 3,000 start-ups and involve 500 markets.’
For more information visit loveyourlocalmarket.org.uk.
The Mail on Sunday
Other leisure
Coral to sell Gala Bingo before float
Gambling group Gala Coral will try to sell its bingo halls before floating the Coral betting shops.
The decision follows damaging claims of the addictiveness of fixed odds betting machines, uncertainty over the rate of online gambling tax and what insiders call ‘the Andy question’.
Controversy is still raging over Coral managing director Andy Hornby’s role in the near-collapse of HBOS bank.
So rather than attempt a flotation in such conditions, the group is thought to be focusing on offloading the Gala Bingo chain in the meantime.
The Mail on Sunday
Snacks
Food giants to bag crisp maker
A crisp maker started by a Herefordshire farmer is about to become the focus of a global takeover tussle.
A coloutful cast of food companies from around the world is hoping to gobble up Tyrrells, the upmarket crisp maker, which turned William Chase, a potato farmer, into a multimillionaire in 2008.
Langholm Capital, a private equity firm, has put the business up for sale, five years after buying it from Chase - who pocketed £30m from the deal.
This time round, Tyrrells has drawn interest from: Kellogg’s, the American food giant; Calbee, the Japanese snacks firm; and Tangerine, the Blackpool-based confectionary company that includes Butterkist popcorn in its stable of brands. First-round bids are this week.
Langholm, which is backed by the household goods giant Unilever and also owns Dorset Cereals, is thought to have slapped a price tag of more than £100m on the business.
Interest could also come from Hain Daniels, the American food group that has been steadily assembling an empire in Britain. Last month it snapped up Ella’s Kitchen, the company that makes organic baby food. Germany’s Intersnack, which bought KP Snacks last year. could also be tempted.
The Sunday Times
