09 Dec 2012 Tiger Brands buys Mrs Ball’s Chutney from Unilever SA

South Africa’s largest food company, Tiger Brands, has bought iconic local brand Mrs Ball’s Chutney from Unilever for a tasty R475m.

Tiger Brands CEO, Peter Matlare, say the acquisition of the Mrs Ball’s brand would give Tiger ownership of one of South Africa’s most treasured food brands and would complement its currsent retail offering within the culinary business.

Dickon Hall, the current manufacturing partner for the Mrs Ball’s retail products and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Libstar, will continue to serve as Tiger’s manufacturing partner for the business.

The turnover for the brand for 2011 was R189m.

The transaction is subject to Competition Commission approval.

Unilever South Africa chairman, Marijn van Tiggelen, says the company reviews its portfolio of brands continually, and the decision to sell was the result of a strategic review of the brand and the subsequent finding that Unilever could not give the focus to Mrs Ball’s that the iconic South African brand deserved.

Tiger Brands owns brands such as All Gold, Tastic and KOO.

Tiger’s new Ball’s was a hot topic on social media on announcement of the deal and it had nothing to do with the US golfer and his sexcapades.

The twits, wits and Tweets had a lot to say, including: “This is a great SA product, so it’s safe to say the Ball is in Tiger’s court.”

“In recent years it seemed as though Unilever were too focused on washing powders and deodorant brands and couldn’t keep their eye on the Ball – now it seems like they’ve dropped the Ball. As a result it’s advantage to Tiger”.

South African comedians also came to the party, with Afzal Khan commenting “with regard to these negotiations, we can safely say that Unilever had Tiger Brands by the Balls.”

It seems Mrs Ball’s has finally got her stripes.

Source: BDLive and IOL.co.za