Froneri is a global ice cream manufacturer with its headquarters in Leeming Bar,

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...

, England. It is the largest producer of ice cream in Europe by volume, and the second-largest in the world, after

Unilever Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy dri ...

. Froneri was established in 2016 as a joint venture between

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since ...

and

PAI Partners PAI Partners is a French private equity firm based in Paris, France. It is one of the oldest firms in the sector, with its origins dating back to Paribas Affaires Industrielles, the historical principal investment activity of Paribas, which sta ...

to combine the two companies' ice cream activities. PAI Partners had previously acquired R&R Ice Cream in 2013. R&R was originally founded as Richmond Ice Cream in 1985. Froneri expanded by initiating consolidation in the European ice cream market. It then took control over Nestlé's USA's ice cream division in 2020. The company has a turnover of £750 million, and employs 3,000 people. The main production site is located at Leeming Bar, and employs 665 people in the largest ice cream factory in Europe. Smaller production sites are located in

Skelmersdale Skelmersdale is a town in Lancashire, England, on the River Tawd, west of Wigan, northeast of Liverpool and southwest of Preston. In 2006, it had a population of 38,813. The town is known locally as Skem . While the first record of the tow ...

and Bodmin,

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

History

The company was founded as Richmond Ice Cream in 1985, when Bedale farmer Jonathan Ropner acquired Cardosi, a

Thornaby Thornaby-on-Tees, commonly referred to as Thornaby, is a town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish on the River Tees's southern bank. It is in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, North Yorkshire, England. The parish had a population of 24,74 ...

ice cream manufacturer. Cardosi had £40,000 of ice cream manufacturing equipment, and had offered itself up for sale. Ropner asked his friend, James Lambert to run the company. Lambert claimed that the pair knew "nothing" about ice cream manufacturing. The company initially had just five employees. In 1987, the company's first major success occurred when it won a contract to manufacture own-label ice cream for supermarket chain

Morrisons Wm Morrison Supermarkets, trading as Morrisons, is the fifth largest supermarket chain in the United Kingdom. As of 2021, the company had 497 supermarkets across England, Wales and Scotland, as well as one in Gibraltar. The company is headqu ...

, which had 44 stores at the time. The company acquired Windsor Creameries from

Trevor Hemmings Trevor James Hemmings (11 June 1935 – 11 October 2021) was a British billionaire businessman. Early life Hemmings was born in Woolwich, London, the son of a Royal Ordnance factory worker father. During the Second World War, part of the Roya ...

in 1994. In return, Hemmings gained a 40% stake in Richmond. In 1997, Richmond completed a

reverse takeover A reverse takeover (RTO), reverse merger, or reverse IPO is the acquisition of a public company by a private company so that the private company can bypass the lengthy and complex process of going public. Sometimes, conversely, the public compa ...

of the publicly listed ice lolly manufacturer Treats Group, based in Leeds, which gave them the Crossgates site and far greater leverage in negotiations with supermarkets. The deal meant that the newly formed entity was publicly listed. Allied Frozen Foods was acquired from Associated British Foods in 2000. It acquired Nestle's loss-making UK ice cream business,

Lyons Maid Lyons Maid is a brand of ice-creams and ice-lollies created in 1925 as a spin-off from the J. Lyons and Co. retail organisation. It is now owned by the Froneri joint venture. Well-known brands produced by Lyons Maid included: Zoom (no longer in ...

, including FAB, in 2001. On 5 May 2006, Richmond Foods announced that it was to be taken over by

Oaktree Capital Management Oaktree Capital Management is an American global asset management firm specializing in alternative investment strategies. As of March 31, 2022, the company managed $164 billion for its clientele. The firm was co-founded in 1995 by a group that ...

, which merged the company with Roncadin, founded by Regina Roncadin, the largest German own-brand label ice cream manufacturer, to make the largest ice cream manufacturer in Europe. The company was then known as R&R Ice Cream. In 2008, it acquired Cornish ice cream producer Kelly's, followed by French business Rolland in 2010. R&R acquired Frederick's Dairies for £49 million in April 2013. It thus acquired control of the licenses for producing Cadbury, Del Monte and

Britvic Britvic plc is a British producer of soft drinks based in Hemel Hempstead, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. It produces soft drinks under its own name, and several other brands. Hist ...

branded ice cream. In August 2012, the company acquired ''Eskigel'' (for £60.5 million), an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

ice cream manufacturer whose factory is located in

Terni Terni ( , ; lat, Interamna (Nahars)) is a city in the southern portion of the region of Umbria in central Italy. It is near the border with Lazio. The city is the capital of the province of Terni, located in the plain of the Nera river. It is ...

(

Umbria it, Umbro (man) it, Umbra (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , ...

), about 65 miles north of

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. In April 2013, R&R was acquired by the French

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a t ...

firm

for £715 million. As a result, James Lambert moved from the chief executive role to chairman. In October 2013, R&R's founder was named entrepreneur of the year at EY's annual awards hosted by Jeremy Vine. Lambert will now go on to compete globally with more than 60 other country winners at the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year awards in Monte Carlo next year. In 2016,

and

agreed to set up a joint venture known as Froneri which combined the two companies' ice cream activities throughout Europe and other international countries. On 11 December 2019, Froneri announced that it will expand into the North American market with the acquisition of Nestle USA's and Nestle Canada's ice cream division for $4 billion USD which includes brands such as

Dreyer's Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, Inc. ("Dreyer's"), is an American ice cream company, founded in 1928 in Oakland, California, where its present-day headquarters office remains. The company's two signature brands, ''Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream'' and ''Edy's ...

Häagen-Dazs Häagen-Dazs ( , ) is an American ice cream brand, established by Reuben and Rose Mattus in The Bronx, New York, in 1960. Starting with only three flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and coffee, the company opened its first retail store in Brooklyn, Ne ...

and Drumstick. The acquisition completed in Q1 2020.

UK Operations

The company manufactures over 600 million ice lollies every year, produces and packages over 70% of 2-litre supermarket own-brand ice cream, including for major UK supermarkets such as

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...

and

Asda Asda Stores Ltd. () (often styled as ASDA) is a British supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Leeds, England. The company was founded in 1949 when the Asquith family merged their retail business with the Associated Dairies company of Yorks ...

, and employs around 665 people at its Leeming Bar plant.BBC Look North 15 August 2011 The Bodmin site employs 30 people.

References

External links

*
Kraft Foods deal
{{Nestlé 1985 establishments in the United Kingdom Food and drink companies established in 1985 Dairy products companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in Hambleton District Multinational dairy companies Private equity portfolio companies Nestlé PAI Partners companies Joint ventures