Unilever has reportedly put plant-based meat brand The Vegetarian Butcher up for sale as it works to slim down its portfolio. According to Sky News, the multinational company is working with investment bank Piper Sandler to sell the brand, and many potential buyers have been approached already.
At an investor event last week, CEO Hein Schumacher said he planned to focus on Unilever’s international “power brands”, such as Hellmann’s mayonnaise; Reuters reported earlier this year that these brands represent over 70% of the company’s sales.
In line with Unilever’s Growth Action Plan 2030, Schumacher intends to offload smaller brands worth around £1 billion in annual sales. Dutch brands such as Unox and Conimex are rumoured to be among them, and Unilever has even attempted to sell its £15 billion ice cream division; however, this will reportedly no longer go ahead due to the difficulty of finding a buyer for such a large business. Instead, the division will be demerged into a spinoff entity.
Unilever purchased The Vegetarian Butcher in 2018, and the brand is reportedly seeing strong sales growth. Its plant-based meat products are sold at major retailers including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Ocado in the UK, and the brand also has major food service partners such as Burger King. It is unclear what The Vegetarian Butcher will be valued at for the purposes of a sale.
The offloading of the brand comes in spite of the target set by Unilever last year to achieve €1.5 billion in sales of plant-based products by 2025. The consumer goods producer had set the goal in order to reduce its carbon emissions.
Founded in 2010, The Vegetarian Butcher celebrated its 13th anniversary last year with the opening of a plant-based butchery in Rotterdam.
“Our mission will not change; we remain committed to releasing animals from the food chain and we believe we can do that with superb-tasting, high-quality products with a great nutritional profile,” Hugo Verkuil, then-CEO of The Vegetarian Butcher, told vegconomist in 2023. “We want to make it the new normal and accessible for even more people.”
