Premium Brands is buying a 62.6 per cent interest in Yorkshire Valley Farms Ltd., an organic chicken processing company in Hamilton.
Yorkshire started eight years ago and now sells about $85 million of organic chicken a year from its 40,000-square-foot processing plant.
The owners are a group of farming families led by Tony Ambler and Tom Ahrens.
"We are delighted to be partnering with Yorkshire. Not only are we gaining another very talented management team, who over a relatively short period established Yorkshire as a leading player in the Canadian organic chicken market, but we are also expanding into a new and exciting high growth product category," said George Paleologou, president and chief executive officer of Premium Brands.
"Organic protein products are growing faster than the overall category in both Canada and the US. This transaction, which combines the unique strengths of Yorkshire with our wide range of resources and capabilities, strongly positions Yorkshire to accelerate its growth in this rapidly expanding market segment,” he said.
James Sculthorpe, president of Yorkshire Valley, said "we chose to partner with Premium Brands based on their solid reputation as a supportive long-term investor that respects the unique cultures and values of the businesses they invest in.
Among Premium Brands’ Ontario companies are Belmont Meats and Piller’s Sausages and Delicatessens Ltd.
Premium Brands’ biggest business is making sandwiches for clients such as Starbucks.
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This is what Premium Brands owns:
Audrey's, B&C Foods, Belmont Meats, Bread Garden GO, Buddy's Kitchen, C&C Packing, Centennial Foodservice, Conte Foods, Creekside Bakehouse, Diana's Seafood, Deli Chef, Duso's, Fletcher's US, Freybe, Gloria’s Best of Fresh, Gourmet Chef, Expresco, Grimm’s, Harlan’s, Harvest, Hempler’s, Hub City Fisheries, Hygaard, Interprovincial Meat Sales, Isernio's, Island City Baking, Larosa Fine Foods, Leadbetters, McSweeney’s, Maximum Seafood, Ocean Miracle, OvenPride, Partners, Piller's, Premier Meat Packers, Quality Fast Foods, Raybern's, Shahir, Shaw Bakers, Skilcor Food Products, Stuyver's Bakestudio, SK Food Group and Westcadia.
