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Canada: French’s owner kicks off food business sale

22/06/2017

Press release
The French’s Food Company LLC
Canada,
NAFTA
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The sale of Reckitt Benckiser Group’s North American food business, which could fetch more than USD 3 billion, has kicked off at the end of May, with information packages going out to industry players. The sale of the food business is aimed at helping the British consumer goods company pay down debt from its planned USD 16.6 billion purchase of U.S. infant nutrition firm Mead Johnson.
Parties that may be interested in the unit, home to French’s mustard and Frank’s RedHot sauce, include McCormick, Conagra Brands, Unilever, Hormel Foods, Pinnacle Foods and Campbell Soup, according to the sources. Reckitt declined to comment, as did other sources.
The business had 411 million pounds (C$715 million) of revenue last year, with like-for-like growth of five per cent, according to Reckitt’s annual report.
 
Reckitt’s French’s condiment business has recently made a splash in Canada promoting its use of Canadian-grown tomatoes and an Ontario bottling plant for all ketchup it sells in the Canadian market, followed by similar promotion for its use of Canadian-grown mustard.
Ketchup origin became an issue among some Canadian consumers after Kraft Heinz shed its Leamington, Ont. tomato processing plant in 2014.