The US food giant had more than tripled its debt load to finance its $6.1bn acquisition of Snyder’s-Lance earlier this year.
As part of its turnaround efforts, Campbell last month announced plans to sell the Bolthouse Farms business to a private equity firm for $510m. It also agreed to sell its Garden Fresh Gourmet business, which it bought for $231m in 2015.
Now, Campbell is believed to have hired Barclays to explore the sale of Kettle Chips.
Changing hands
If sold, the new owner will be the third that Kettle Chips will have had in four years.
The snack brand was acquired by Campbell as part of the Snyder’s-Lance deal.
Snyder-Lance, in turn, had attained it as part of its procurement of Diamond Foods in 2016.
Cameron Healy launched Kettle in Oregon in 1978. The company expanded its footprint to the UK a decade later, and today employs almost 500 people across two Norfolk sites.
The UK arm of Kettle posted a drop in revenue for the seven-month period to July 31 2018, following ‘very intense’ competition in the UK market and increased brand investment, according to a Companies House report.
It fell to a £4.3m operating loss in the seven-month period from a £51k profit for FY2017.
Campbell and Barclays both declined to comment.
