Poultry specialist adds red meat ingredients to range

By Jess Halliday

- Last updated on GMT

Rectory Foods has added a new slate of beef and pork products to its ingredient offering for food manufacturers, in a new step to expand from its solid base in poultry.

The UK-based poultry specialist has bought a majority stake in Acura Foods, so it can offer fresh and frozen pork and beef products to customers in the food manufacturing sector for use in ready meals, as well as food service, retail and wholesale customers.

Charles Woolley, founder and director of Rectory Foods called red meat a “natural addition”​ to his company’s offering. Since Acura has two decades of experience in commercial and technical aspects of red meat distribution, and has customers in Europe, Asia and North America, it has the know-how to hand from the outset.

The value of the acquisition has not been revealed, but Acura managing director David Eaton will head up the new red meat division under the Rectory Foods banner.

Expansion plan hatched

The deal is the latest move to expand from Rectory’s poultry base. Two years ago the company branched out into frozen and dried ingredients too, a decision managing director Charles Woolley said was taken partly to give the company some protection from high profile issues that can cause dips in the market in the past.

When issues like BSE, foot and mouth, avian flu and salmonella in eggs hit the market, the effects can be seen even on businesses that are not directly implicated. Having a broader business profile therefore provides more streams to fall back on should one experience problems.

“I felt the business was fairly vulnerable to fluctuations, as we can’t influence them. They are out of our control,”​ Woolley told FoodNavigator.com.

In addition, the company is positioning to provide its customers to pick up more of the components they need to make a particular food product – not just meat, but also lentils, sunflower seeds, broccoli, garlic and ginger.

Woolley has signalled that more plans are in the pipeline:

“We are planning further growth and expansion in 2010 and beyond as we take on more staff and increase our customer base,”​ he said, “and this development is a great platform for us to build on.”

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