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Western Morning News
Tuesday 22 January 2008
Leading Westcountry poultry company Lloyd Maunder has been bought for an undisclosed sum by European chicken giant the 2 Sisters Food Group, it was announced yesterday.West Midlands-based 2 Sisters says it has plans to expand the Devon-based brand as "a regional centre of excellence" following the takeover, which sees Maunder join a company with annual sales of more than £500 million.
Ranjit Singh, founder and chief executive of 2 Sisters Food Group, said Lloyd Maunder had been a leading light in the UK poultry industry for 50 years and his firm would be "seeking to build on that success".
"We're planning to develop the operation further as a regional centre of excellence for specialist poultry production," he said.
"By acquiring such a good production base in the South West, we can now offer national pricing to our customers, but through local sourcing. This is good news for our carbon footprint."
Lloyd Maunder, founded at the turn of the 20th century and based at Willand in Mid Devon, pioneered the production of poultry for the retail market 50 years ago.
Today it is the country's leading producer of specialist poultry, retailed in supermarkets nationally and a dominant player in the South West poultry production industry.
It employs 800 staff at Willand and works with 157 family-run farms to produce 500,000 chickens a week.
2 Sisters Food Group is a major European food company supplying chicken products to the retail, food service and food manufacturing sectors.
It employs 4,500 staff across 12 sites in the UK, plus operations in Holland and the US.
Lloyd Maunder's current directors Peter, Andrew and Richard Maunder will all remain with the company.
Andrew Maunder said: "Ultimately this is good news for poultry production in the region.
"We are all staying on to work with 2 Sisters Food Group, which we hope will help make it as smooth a transition as possible.
"There will obviously be changes ahead, but I believe these will be favourable, creating lots of opportunity over the coming months and years."
Details of how the acquisition will affect Lloyd Maunder will be established in the coming weeks.
Its chain of 15 butchers shops in Devon and Cornwall is not included in the 2 Sisters acquisition.
These will remain with Lloyd Maunder Holdings and continue to be managed by the current shops team, overseen by Andrew Maunder.
He said: "We are a family of butchers. It's how the business started way back in 1898.
"Our shops are currently going from strength to strength and this latest development with the poultry side of the business won't affect their progress."
While the Lloyd Maunder poultry business has been acquired by 2 Sisters, the land assets at Willand are being leased to 2 Sisters by Lloyd Maunder Holdings.
Existing plans to redevelop those parts of the site not used in the poultry operation are still being progressed by Lloyd Maunder Holdings.