Top story
Paleo snack bar brand The Primal Pantry has won the backing of three food industry heavyweights as it looks to continue high levels of growth experienced since launching in 2014, The Grocer can reveal.
Mark Palmer, Jeff van der Eems and former Mark Reckitt have all taken minority stakes in the business, with founder Suzie Walker and Dominic Maxwell retaining control.
Palmer, who stepped down as marketing director at Pret A Manger in September, was part of the management team at Green & Black’s which sold the organic chocolate brand to Cadbury in 2005 for £20m, as well as a co-founder at Cawston Press. Former United Biscuits CEO van der Eems, who has also held leadership positions at PepsiCo, oversaw the £2bn sale of McVitie’s maker to Turkish group Yildiz in 2014. And Reckitt is a former chief strategy director at Cadbury.
Palmer takes up the chairman role following investment and a seat on the board, alongside van der Eems.
“I have been hugely impressed by the early progress that The Primal Pantry has made,” Palmer said. “The products are exceptional and the business is well placed to grow as customers continue to turn to premium healthy snacks.”
Specialist investment bank Stamford Partners advised Primal Pantry on the capital raising, first revealed by The Grocer last month.
Walker, who launched Primal Pantry in early 2014 with an investment of £16k, will continue to run the paleo diet brand with business partner Dominic Maxwell.
For the full exclusive story visit thegrocer.co.uk.
Morning update
Elsewhere on the finance channel of thegrocer.co.uk there are exclusive stories on Quorn’s latest export push and a fall in sales at tea brand Typhoo.
Quorn is stepping up its ambitious worldwide growth plans with the start of operations in Asia and the expansion of its commercial team in a number of overseas markets. CEO Kevin Brennan said it was the fastest level of expansion in the business’ history. Readthe full story here.
A £7.6m drop in revenues at Typhoo Tea to £74.1m in the year to 31 March 2016 – a reversal from 16% growth from 2014/15 – pushed down EBITDA 28% to £5.1m and operating profits 26% to £3.7m, latest accounts published at Companies House revealed. For the full story click here.
Yesterday in the City
After opening strongly, shares in Marston’s (MAR) ended the day 2.8% down at 132.2p despite the brewer reporting revenue and profit growth of 7% in the past year.
It was another quiet day on the markets for grocery stocks, but mixed interim results from PayPoint (PAY) saw shares remain flat at 1,040p.
The markets in London were also calm ahead of Thanksgiving in the US and, with it, Black Friday. The FTSE 100 ended the day just 0.2% higher at 6,829.20 points.
Greencore (GNC), Compass Group (CPG) and Ocado (OCDO) were among the risers yesterday, up 1.1% to 289.1p, 0.8% to 1,366p and 0.6% to 266.8p respectively.
Fallers included TATE & Lyle (TATE), PZ Cussons and Dairy Crest (DCG), down 3.1% to 672p, 2% to 308p and 1.9% to 572.5p.
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