Knead Italian dough
Pasta firm in £100m bid to buy iconic Hovis
HOVIS could be about to make a whole lot more bread after an Italian firm launched a bid to buy the firm, for a reported £100million.
Newlat Food yesterday confirmed it had made an offer for the 134 134-year-old year old company – best known own for the 1973 TV ad with ha a boy pushing a bike ke laden with loaves up p a hill.
The Italian outfit is more used to making ng
Buitoni pasta. But t it said Hovis is “a great eat tradition wi t th h recognisability in the
UK”. Newlat is believed to be among ng more than a dozen en interested in buying ying
Hovis, which is based in High Wycombe, Bucks, and employs 2,800 staff.
But the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union warned any new owner must ensure the protection of the workforce is central to a takeover.
National president Ian Hodson said: “The company has improved its position in the market in recent years so I can understand why there are a number of businesses interested.
“But the staff have been responsible for those improvements p and any buyer needs to be prepared to i invest in its loyal workforce”
The Hovis brand was started by Richard “Stoney” Smith at a mill on the Macclesfield canal in 1886.
He produced the f famous wheatgerm a and flour recipe still u used today. It could join a list of UK food brands being sn snapped up by foreign firms. US giant Kraft bought Cadbury in 2009. Terry’s of York was taken over by Kraft Foods in 1993. Indian company Tata bought Tetley Tea in 2000 and Heinz bought HP sauce six years later.