TANDRAGEE snacks firm Tayto has boughtTavern Snacks in London and acquired a 75 per cent holding in Devon-based company Portlebay Popcorn for an undisclosed sum.
It's the company’s first purchase of a popcorn manufacturer, and the part-acquisition of Portlebay brings Tayto’s plant ownership to six. The sale comes in the wake of the purchase of Tavern Snacks.
Tayto chief executivePaul Allen said: “We are really impressed with the innovation and enthusiasm of the Portlebay team and they make a first-class, premium product.
"While they will continue to run the business independently from Tayto, we will provide access to all the wider group capabilities and we are looking forward to seeing significant growth.
“The purchase of Tavern has allowed us to diversify both by adding another brand and also by introducing their range of nuts to our portfolio. We're now producing crisps in Tandragee which are being sold under the Tavern name all around London.”
Award-winning Portlebay was the first company to produce the much-copied and extremely popular ‘crispy bacon and maple syrup’ popcorn. This kind of gourmet flavour has set the company’s product apart from the competition and is one of their best-selling lines.
Other flavours such as ‘chilli and lime’ and the more traditional ‘lightly salted’ and ‘sweet and salty’ are also very popular.
Portlebay currently supplies stores such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Co-Op and a number of independent retailers, mainly in the south of England.
Tavern Snacks was founded in the 1970s and sells crisps and nuts, mainly to the licensed trade in the Greater London area. The company also supplies a huge range of other products, including everything from bar supplies such as straws and cocktail sticks, through to confectionery and even pickled eggs, mussels and cockles.
Tayto Group Ltd, owned by Northern Ireland family the Hutchinsons since 1956, already has a portfolio of well-known names in the snack world, such as Tayto, Golden Wonder, Mr Porky, REAL Crisps and Jonathan Crisp.
The group’s headquarters are at Tayto Castle in Co Armagh and Tayto remains Northern Ireland’s most popular crisp brand, producing more than one million crisps and snacks at its Tandragee site each working day.
