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Flora Food Group

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Flora Food Group B.V.
Company typeBesloten vennootschap
IndustryConsumer goods
Predecessors
Founded2018; 6 years ago (2018) (by spin-off)
Founders
Headquarters
Amsterdam
,
Netherlands
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
David Haines, CEO
ProductsMargarines, spreads
OwnerKohlberg Kravis Roberts
ParentKohlberg Kravis Roberts
Websiteflorafoodgroup.com

Flora Food Group B.V. is a Dutch food company owning multiple brands of margarine, food spreads, and plant-based foods, including Flora and Blue Band. It states that it is the largest plant-based consumer packaged goods company in the world, operating in 95 countries.[1]

The company was spun off under the name Upfield from Unilever and purchased by investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) in 2018 for US$8.04 billion.[2]

History

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Margarine was one of the first products sold by the company that would merge into Unilever.[3] Antoon Jurgens of Oss, Netherlands, acquired the patent for making margarine from its inventor Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès in 1871.[4] Through a series of mergers Jurgens' company became Margarine Unie in 1927 and then Unilever in 1929.[5] Since that time, Unilever has added other margarine and food spread brands.

Although the food spreads division of Unilever maintained a robust profit margin, in the 21st century sales declined as many consumers switched to butter. In the five years leading to 2014, sales of margarine fell 6%, while sales of butter rose 7%.[6]

Following a February 2017 takeover attempt by Kraft Heinz, Unilever chief executive Paul Polman made a pledge to investors to boost returns. In April of the same year, Unilever put the margarine and spreads division up for sale with the intention of returning the net cash from the sale to shareholders.[2]

Original logo as Upfield

The sale sparked a bidding war among buyout firms including Apollo Global Management, CVC Capital Partners, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, and Bain Capital. According to Bloomberg, it was the biggest-leveraged buyout in Europe in 2017.[3] In December 2017, Unilever accepted an offer of €6.8bn from investment firm KKR. The purchase, which was completed in July 2018, was funded by European and North American private equity funds that are under KKR's control.[7] The brands in the sale represented about 7% of Unilever's global business.[8]

In January 2020 they purchased Violife, a brand of plant-based cheese.[9]

Following falling margarine sales as consumers switched to butter, since summer 2020 the company focused more on the "plant-based" market, also claiming sustainability, to increase sales.[10] The Group also announced it would invest €50 million in a facility for research and development on plant-based products, to be opened at the end of 2021.[11]

The company was renamed Flora Food Group in September 2024.

Leadership

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David Haines, non-executive director of tobacco company Imperial Brands, was appointed CEO in July 2018.[12] Current members of the Executive Committee are listed on the Upfield website.[13]

Products and operations

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A veggieburger with Violife vegan cheese

Flora Food Group's notable brands include:[14]

  • Flora, a margarine
  • Violife, a vegan product range
  • Country Crock, margarines and spreads
  • Rama, a margarine and cooking cream brand (Germany)
  • Blue Band, margarines, and cheese and vegetable fat spreads
  • I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!, a vegetable oil-based spread
  • Becel, plant-based margarines
    • ProActiv, a Becel sub-brand
  • Lätta, a margarine brand in Sweden and Germany
  • Bertolli is a brand of Italian food products produced by multiple companies around the world with the trademark owned by Mizkan Holdings; Upfield produces a Bertolli olive oil spread range
  • Elmlea, a range of buttermilk and vegetable oil blends sold as cream alternatives[15]
  • Fruit d'Or, margarine
  • Planta Fin, margarine
  • Stork (margarine)
  • Delma, a margarine brand
  • Minyak Samin Cap Onta (Indonesia only)
  • Frytol, solid vegetable oil (Indonesia only)

In southern Africa, Remgro-owned Siqalo Foods, rather than Upfield, holds the rights to several of these brands.

After Upfield was spin off from Unilever in 2018, the Purfleet-on-Thames factory was closed, making 200 employees redundant.[16] Underperformance and excessive costs were determined to be the reason for the closing of the factory.

In June 2020 it was made public that Upfield were to offshore its factory in Helsingborg, Sweden,[17] with 80 employees notified of termination. The manufacture of Upfield's cheese & dairy products was scheduled to move to a factory in Kleve, Germany by February 2021.[18]

Buttermilk was added to now non-vegan UK production of Flora Buttery in 2020.[19]

In March 2021 Upfield announced that the factory in Rotterdam would close in mid-2022.[citation needed]

In November 2021 Upfield bought Unilever's production factory in Cali, Colombia, producing Rama, Violife and Blue Band.[20]

References

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  1. ^ "Upfield". www.upfield.com. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
  2. ^ a b Roumeliotis, Greg (2017-12-16). "Unilever to sell spreads business to KKR for $8 billion". Reuters.
  3. ^ a b Buckley, Thomas (15 December 2017). "Unilever Sells Spreads Business to KKR for $8.1 Billion". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
  4. ^ Rupp, Rebecca (13 August 2014). "The Butter Wars: When Margarine Was Pink". www.nationalgeographic.com. Archived from the original on June 18, 2018. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
  5. ^ "Our history". Unilever global company website. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
  6. ^ Coxall, Malcolm (20 February 2014). Ethical Eating: A Complete Guide to Sustainable Food. Cornelio Books. p. 58. ISBN 978-84-941783-1-3.
  7. ^ Devlin, Edward (15 December 2017). "KKR snaps up Unilever spreads division for £6bn". TheGrocer.co.uk. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
  8. ^ Treanor, Jill (15 December 2017). "Unilever sells household name spreads to KKR for £6bn". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
  9. ^ "UPFIELD GROUP B.V. CLOSES PURCHASE OF ARIVIA". Violife Foods. 2020-01-16. Retrieved 2021-05-13.
  10. ^ Evans, Judith (6 July 2020). "Flora maker looks to spread virtue of margarine in vegan shift". Financial Times.
  11. ^ White, Martin (12 June 2020). "Upfield invests 50m euros into new plant-based R&D facility". Foodbev.
  12. ^ "Imperial Brands director David Haines leaves for Upfield gig". Shares Magazine. 4 July 2018. Archived from the original on 29 September 2020.
  13. ^ "Leadership". Upfield.
  14. ^ "Our Brands". www.upfield.com. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  15. ^ Gallagher, Sophie (26 February 2021). "Sorry, wait, Elmlea isn't actually cream?". The Independent.
  16. ^ Speight, Neil (January 18, 2019). "200 jobs set to go as spreads factory in Purfleet is earmarked for closure".
  17. ^ "Helsingborgsföretag flyttar verksamhet utomlands". HD.
  18. ^ Brulin, Gunnar (June 30, 2020). "Upfield i Helsingborg varslar 80 anställda".
  19. ^ "Flora Adds Dairy Buttermilk Back Into Vegan Buttery Spread in UK". VegNews.com. October 2020.
  20. ^ "La producción de las margarinas Rama cambiará de dueño". 18 November 2021.
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