{"id":878782,"date":"2026-10-07T16:04:35","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T14:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=878782"},"modified":"2026-10-07T16:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T14:09:08","slug":"owner-of-snowflake-blue-ribbon-and-rhodes-in-south-africa-in-hot-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/878782\/owner-of-snowflake-blue-ribbon-and-rhodes-in-south-africa-in-hot-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Owner of Snowflake, Blue Ribbon, and Rhodes in South Africa responds to serious allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Premier Foods has responded to the Competition Commission’s move to revoke approval of its merger with RFG Holdings<\/strong><\/a>, following the group’s shutdown of its fruit cannery in the Western Cape in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Premier Foods said it “strongly disagrees” with the Commission’s characterisation of its conduct and will defend itself before the Competition Tribunal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Premier strongly disagrees with the Commission\u2019s characterisation of the parties’ conduct and the basis for the application and will defend its position before the Tribunal,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Premier rejects any suggestion that it acted unlawfully, withheld material information or sought to mislead the Commission or the Tribunal during the merger review process.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Competition Commission filed an application with the Competition Tribunal to revoke its approval of Premier Foods’ merger, due to its closure of a fruit cannery in Tulbagh, Western Cape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Commission alleged that Premier Foods failed to disclose the factory’s closure during the merger process, despite the company having contemplated it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This came after the Commission launched an investigation into the closure, prompted by a complaint from workers’ unions, which alleged that the factory’s closure was a breach of merger conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The contemplated closure of the Tulbagh cannery was material to the assessment of both the competition and public-interest aspects of the merger,\u201d the Commission said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWithholding material information, whether by omission or as a deliberate act, undermines the integrity of the merger-control regime and may result in the revocation of an approved merger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Premier Foods said it did not withhold information during merger discussions and had disclosed the possibility of factory closures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Premier has proactively engaged with the Commission on the potential closure of Fruit Products Western Cape (FPWC) and provided it with the chronology of events and supporting documents related to its decision-making process regarding FPWC,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not part of the merger<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Premier Foods said the closure of the FPWC cannery in the Western Cape was not related to the merger, and was due to “commercial realities” facing the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The proposed controlled closure of FPWC was not a decision, intention or merger implementation step at the time of the merger approval process,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The decision to close FPWC is not in any way related to the merger but arose after implementation of the transaction, following the deterioration in FPWC\u2019s operating environment and the commercial realities facing the canned deciduous fruit category.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said that factors such as changing global demand, rising costs, lower utilisation, and the need for greater scale in an increasingly competitive international market were all behind the factory’s closure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company added that it had not seen any evidence to suggest that the factory’s closure is related to its intended merger with RFG Holdings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The commercial reality and facts that resulted in Premier taking the decision to exit the deciduous fruit canning market would have confronted the FPWC business irrespective of the merger,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FPWC cannery is a major employer in the Western Cape, and the Competition Commission said its closure would affect more than 400 permanent staff members and thousands of seasonal workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Competition Commission noted that part of the merger conditions for approval were employee protections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also said that the closure of the FPWC cannery would create a monopoly over canned fruits in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Including the FPWC facility, there are only two canneries in South Africa, with the other being in Langenberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the FPWC facility, Premier Foods said it had completed the section 189A consultation process, with most affected employees taking voluntary severance packages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The overwhelming majority of affected employees entered into voluntary severance agreements,” the company said. “As a result, no retrenchments will be implemented.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Premier Foods has strongly rejected suggestions of foul play after the Competition Commission’s move to revoke its merger approval over a factory closure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":867955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2107834595039162383","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2229443994542666","_sma_instagram_post_id":"17965446621207401","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[1516,1520,26741,25735],"class_list":["post-878782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-competition-commission","tag-competition-tribunal","tag-fpwc","tag-premier-foods"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878782"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":878804,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878782\/revisions\/878804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}