UB lodges Wotsits complaint - Company News - United Biscuits - Brief Article

Eurofood,  July 4, 2002  

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UK snack maker United Biscuits (UB) has lodged a protest to the UK government's Office of Fair Trading (OFT) regarding the recently announced sale of Golden Wonder's crisp business (see Eurofood 6 June 2002, p4).

Golden Wonder is being broken up through the sale, with the majority of the business being sold to The Snack Factory. However, the cheesy snack brand Wotsits is being sold to UK market leader Walkers, a subsidiary of US cola and snack giant PepsiCo, and this is concerning UB.

UB claims Walkers already controls just under half of the 2bn [pounds sterling] (3.1bn [euro]) a year bagged snack market, and fears with the addition of the Wotsits brand, which sells over one million bags a day, walkers market share could easily rise above 50%.

UB currently has around a 16% share of the market.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Agra Europe Ltd.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group