Tayto snacks producer C&C said it is carrying out a "strategic review" of the company after shutting the brand's flagship factory in Coolock, Dublin six months ago.
C&C, one of Ireland's largest makers and distributors of beverages and snacks, announced yesterday it had hired broker IBI Corporate Finance to help it carry out a review of Tayto.
"The strategic review process is at an early stage and there can be no certainty that any transaction in relation to Tayto will ultimately occur," the Dublin-based company said in a statement.
C&C cited the need to trim costs amid increasing competition, especially from PepsiCo's Walkers, when it announced the closure last year of its north Dublin plant. C&C gave Largo Foods the contract to produce the Tayto crisps previously made in Coolock.
Tayto has been valued at around €60 million. Largo and Tayto (Northern Ireland) are considered to be the most likely bidders for the crisp company.
Tayto (Northern Ireland), owned by the Hutchinson family, employs some 300 people at its main manufacturing facility at Tandagree Castle in County Armagh and owns the rights to the crisp brand outside the Republic.
The Northern Irish company, though, has only recently acquired the Scunthorpe, England factory of Golden Wonder and its brands, six weeks after the English crisp maker went into administration.
Production of Tayto's trademark cheese-and-onion crisps was begun in 1954 by the late Joe "Spud" Murphy in a small factory on O'Rahilly Parade off Moore St, Dublin, where the crisps were first manufactured by hand using two sets of deep fat fryers.
