Soreen

Clearwater advise on a rising deal that sees long standing baker, Warburtons sell Soreen to Inter Link Foods plc.

Warburtons, the UK’s leading independent baker, sold its Soreen malt loaf business, based in Trafford Park, Manchester to Inter Link. The baker, established since 1839, acquired Soreen in 1959. Annual turnover at the time of the transaction was £11 million and employed 130 people.

Inter Link, based in Blackburn, is a manufacturer of private label cakes, pastries and other baked products, with six manufacturing locations, primarily in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Inter Link also distributes cakes and confectionery to independent retailers and the food service sector.

Clearwater identified Inter Link as the strategic buyer, leading all the negotiations to deliver a great price for Warburtons.

Soreen is stocked in all but one of the major multiples as well as smaller independents and supplies own label products to a number of customers.

Warburtons was looking to sell Soreen as a part of an important five-year national expansion programme, to become Britain's Favourite Baker and hence sold Soreen which it viewed as non-core to this strategy.

Warburton's chairman Jonathan Warburton said:

“The sale is the result of a strategic business review and confirms our intention to concentrate all of our resources on our core activity, which has increasingly been the expansion of our bread baking business.”