Food manufacturer and importer Silbury, which has offices in Knaresborough, has agreed a merger with pizza ingredients supplier Portal Foods.
The merger deal creates a £45m turnover ingredients business supplying some of the biggest high street and retail brands in the UK, Ireland and beyond.
Adrian Hall, managing director of Silbury, said the merger would facilitate growth and open up new markets for the new business.
Adrian Hall said:
The foodservice industry is experiencing rapid growth in the UK and by combining our strengths we are well positioned to meet the needs of a sector that is expected to be worth more than £56bn by the end of 2019.
Silbury operates an edible oil processing and blending plant in Brough, East Yorkshire. Portal Foods, established in the 1980s, supplies bespoke pizza products to pizza chains and the independent sector in the UK, Ireland and Europe from its base in Banbury.
Silbury and Portal are fellow shareholders in Portuguese based tomato product manufacturer HIT Group and Mr Hall said shared values of quality assurance, provenance and traceability had inspired discussions about pooling client portfolios and food manufacturing expertise.
Mr Hall said:
By merging Silbury and Portal we have created a single company with a wider product range and unified quality control procedures across all areas of production and sourcing.
The customers of both companies now have access to a broader range of ingredients and confidence that all products meet the stringent quality control procedures that recently led to Silbury’s edible oil processing facility in Brough being awarded the new AA excellence level classification of BRC issue 7 accreditation.
This is in addition to Silbury’s BRC Agent and Broker, Kosher, Halaal and Organic accreditations.
Mr Hall said that the plans to expand manufacturing would ultimately lead to an increase in the size of the joint workforce.
Mr Hall said:
As a 100 per cent British owned business we are committed to developing our production facilities here in the UK.
Investment in manufacturing and logistics will be a key focus moving forward, giving us greater control over our supply chain and providing our customers with the provenance they expect and demand.
Integration will happen gradually over a period of time and will ultimately see innovation in both new product development and packaging design.
