DAILY EXPRESS ARTICLE - 23RD April 2006
Scratchings sale to bring home the bacon.
MR PORKY, the first pork scratchings to reach both the North and South poles, could be sold in a deal worth more than £30 million.
Sources close to the negotiations told the Financial Sunday Express that the private equity owners of Red Mill Snack Floods were mulling over a sale of the business.
Red Mill, one of the UK's leading manufacturers of savoury snacks, with an output of more than half a billion packets a year, is part of Continental Foods and owned by Mezzanine Management.
The business, headed by James McKinney, is thought to have had sales of £34 million in the year to the end of April 2005.
Mr Porky went to both poles when explorer David Hempleman-Adams chose them as "an essential expedition snack".
According to the company, pork scratchings have been around for centuries but became popular in the early 1800s when new uses were found for offcuts from pigs.
Red Mill's sale could attract interest from larger food companies and private equity investors. Both Red Mill and Mezzanine Management declined to comment on the salt-process.
MANFREDA CAVAZZA
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