Hilton Foods boosts meat supplies to Tesco

2nd Dec 2013 07:21

Meatpacker Hilton Food said it has signed a new agreement with Tesco for the increased supply of packed fresh meat products in the UK from its facility near Huntingdon."The agreement means a substantial increase in volumes supplied to Tesco from the Huntingdon facility, the full benefit of which will be obtained in 2015 and subsequent years," it said in a company statement.Hilton, which sells meat to supermarkets such as the Co-op and Ahold in Europe and Tesco in the UK, said it expects the impact of consumer weakness in Western Europe to be wholly offset in 2014 by the positive effect of its new UK agreement with Tesco. Hilton Foods generates around three-quarters of its revenue from outside the UK."The full benefit of this agreement is expected in subsequent years, once the upgrade of the Huntingdon facility has been completed. The additional requirement for capital expenditure in the UK and Sweden is estimated to total approximately £30m, to be financed primarily from banking facilities and also from internal cash resources," Hilton explained.Chief Executive Robert Watson said: "This is an exciting development for Hilton. We are proud to have formed a strong, long-lasting partnership with Tesco and we will continue to work closely with them to supply products of the highest quality to their customers."Under the new agreement, which runs until February 2019, Hilton will make an additional investment to raise volumes and introduce new state of the art technology within the facility."CJ