Cérélia has finally thrown in the towel and sold the Jus-Rol ready-to-bake brand to a private equity firm, following a three-year battle with the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA).
London-based Rinkelberg Capital acquired the Jus-Rol business from the French bakery giant after numerous appeals by the group to overturn the CMA’s order to unwind the deal fell flat.
Rinkelberg, the investment office of the founders of satnav maker TomTom, also snapped up PA Ross Food Group, a sales and marketing company specialising in bringing impulse, bakery and frozen products to the UK retailers, documents filed at Companies House revealed. PA Ross founder Tim Clifford and sales director Lucy Filby are both listed as directors for Brioche UK Ltd, the company set up by Rinkelberg to acquire Jus-Rol.
The Grocer understands that PA Ross, founded by Clifford and Peter Ross in Cheshire in 1997, will manage the brand for the investment firm.
Cérélia UK managing director Jan Boers told The Grocer that Rinkelberg shared the group’s ambition for Jus-Rol and saw the brand’s potential.
“We are pleased that as part of the arrangement Jus-Rol will continue to be produced in our facility in the UK,” he added.
A spokesman for Rinkelberg said: “We are excited about the growth prospects of this iconic British brand, and we look forward to working with our retail and manufacturing partners to realise its full potential.”
Cérélia acquired Jus-Rol from General Mills in November 2021 but the deal was called in by the watchdog in February 2022 over worries of higher prices and a substantial lessening of competition in the category.
Read more: Cérélia and Jus-Rol: does the CMA have a point in blocking the deal?
Cérélia was already manufacturing the Jus-Rol range of ready rolled pastry in France prior to the deal after General Mills closed its Berwick-upon-Tweed factory and outsourced production. The group created jobs in the UK in 2020 when it opened a new factory in Corby to make Jus-Rol and other own-label products.
After an almost year-long investigation, the CMA ruled Cérélia would have to sell Jus-Rol. The watchdog found items made by Cérélia and Jus-Rol accounted for almost two-thirds of the £100m-a-year ready-to-bake dough category in the UK.
Supermarket also claimed they considered the companies’ products to be important alternatives to one another and the ability to trade off Jus-Rol against Cérélia, and vice versa, when buying products allowed them to get a better deal for customers.
Cérélia called the decision “flawed” and claimed it had been based on “uncorroborated and unreliable concerns raised by a very small number of supermarkets”.
The group fought to overturn the ruling in the courts for two years. A legal challenge lodged by Cérélia with the Competition Appeal Tribunal sided with the CMA in September 2023 and a subsequent hearing in the Court of Appeal was also overruled in April 2024.
At the time, Cérélia refused to put Jus-Rol up for sale and vowed to continue fighting on, taking the case to the Supreme Court. However, its application for permission to appeal was refused by the Supreme Court in August, leaving the company with no choice but to sell off Jus-Rol.
The battle cost Cérélia UK almost £6m, according to accounts for the business filed at Companies House.
The CMA confirmed it had now closed the merger investigation.
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