John West in £568m sale to Thai giant

Private-equity firm Trilantic Capital Partners has agreed to sell the brand’s owner, MW Brands, to Thailand’s biggest producer and exporter of canned fish, Thai Union Frozen Products (TUF).

John West was founded more than 140 years ago by a Scotsman of the same name from near Edinburgh who set up canning factories in America. The name was bought by two Liverpool merchants who began importing canned salmon in 1892.

The business was bought by Unilever in 1963, with branches soon established in Australia and Africa.

In 1997, it was bought by food giant Heinz, which in turn sold it on to Trilantic in 2006.

John West employs 67 staff in the UK, with 12 in Ireland but about a further 300 indirectly through its supply chain.

TUF president Thiraphong Chansiri said the deal was a transformational opportunity which would lift its tuna processing capacity to half a million tonnes