PORK giant Karro Food Group, whose plant in Cookstown processes 1.2 million pigs every year, is moving into fish.
Its investment company owner CapVest Partners has finally reached an agreement to acquire Young’s Seafood Ltd after previous attempts floundered due to disagreements over valuation.
The combined operation will sales of around £1.2 billion (Karro's 2018 sales were £638 million while revenues at Young’s were £545m) and employ more than 5,000 people across the UK and Ireland.
The companies will operate as two separate entities within the enlarged group and will continue to focus on providing food products to customers across the pork and seafood sectors.
Cookstown has been a UK-leading pork producing town since 1937 (in the 1970s the factory's owners famously hired George Best to promote its sausages, coining phrases like the 'Cookstown sizzle' and 'Best family sausages').
It currently employs more than 600 workers, making it one of the biggest employers in Mid-Ulster.
Karro Food Group (formed when it split from the faltering Vion Food Group in late 2012) was acquired three years ago by London-based CapVest for £180 million.
Di Walker, executive chair of Karro, has been appointed chief executive of the enlarged group following the Young's takeover.
She said: “We are hugely excited about the opportunity to create an ambitious multi-protein food business of considerable scale.
“Young’s and Karro are highly complementary businesses and the combined platform will have strong market positions in two important protein categories that are experiencing consistent long-term growth.
“This agreement will provide both businesses with the opportunity to further develop and broaden our relationships with our key partners.”
Bill Showalter, who heads up Young’s, added: “With CapVest’s existing understanding of our industry, and as part of a multi-protein food group, we will have the opportunity to inspire more consumers to love fish through our fresh, frozen, own-label and branded products.
“The transaction will build an even stronger foundation from which we can drive growth, providing exceptional quality fish and stand out innovation to countries around the world.”
In the year to last December, weak pork markets and one-off charges sent the Karro Food Group further into the red as pre-tax losses for the year rose to £9.2m compared to a £4.8m loss in the shorter 35-week period to the end of December 2017. Sales rose to £638.2m from £442.5m last year, though this represented a 2.9 per cent decline on a pro-rata basis.
Exceptional items of more than £5.1m were incurred over the year, including a £1.3m write-down of its McGee butchery business in the Republic and £1.9m relating to a court case regarding a 2016 workplace accident.
Karro also incurred £1.9m of acquisition-related costs, £1.3m of which came from previous efforts to buy Young's.
