William Jackson Food Group has acquired healthy snacking and bread brand The Food Doctor for an undisclosed sum.
The Food Doctor currently sells a variety of healthy foods including a multi seed and cereal pitta bread, and fig and mango bar, via retailers including Tesco, Waitrose and Amazon.
Ian Hunt will be the new managing director of the company, having previously worked across several William Jackson companies including Aunt Bessie’s and MyFresh. The Food Doctor’s former owner, Michael da Costa, will remain with the company as innovation director.
Norman Soutar, chief executive at William Jackson Food Group, said: “We’ve been looking to enter the healthy snacking category for some time now and have long admired The Food Doctor, which today sells branded healthy snacking and bread products across the major retailers, albeit products are primarily available in the south of England.
“With our investment and knowledge of the food industry, and an appetite among shoppers for healthy and tasty food, we see exciting opportunities for us to grow the brand and develop it further.”
Soutar told The Grocer that William Jackson had been looking to move into healthy snacking for five years and had already built a presence in the health foods area with organic food box retailer Abel & Cole.
He said that The Food Doctor would run separately to Abel & Cole and that, in addition to consolidating its current listings, it would look to grow in the travel, convenience, food-to-go and online markets.
William Jackson Food Group recently reported a pre-tax profit rise to £18m for the year ended 25 April 2015.
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