Colman’s Mustard has been put up for sale by Unilever, as the FTSE 100 group moves to head off competition concerns ahead of the planned merger of its food division with the American spice giant McCormick.
Bankers from Rothschild have been hired to handle the sale, which was first reported by Sky News.
Under the terms of Unilever’s spin off of its food business, Colman’s and other major Unilever brands such as Marmite were due to move into McCormick as part of a deal creating a £48bn giant. Colman’s will now be sold before the transaction completes, while the rest of the food division is still expected to transfer to the US group. Unilever announced the combination of Unilever Foods with McCormick at the end of March, and the deal is expected to close in mid 2027, subject to McCormick shareholder approval and regulatory clearances.
The mustard pot is the sticking point. McCormick already owns French’s Mustard, and Unilever’s advisers had feared that adding Colman’s to the same portfolio would create a mustard monopoly, handing regulators ammunition to block the wider deal.
“A decision has been taken to market the Colman’s brand and assets to potential buyers in order to proactively seek to address potential competition concerns from the planned combination of Unilever Foods and McCormick,” a Unilever spokesman said. “Discussions are ongoing and the operations continue as usual.”
The Competition and Markets Authority in the UK and the Federal Trade Commission in the US are both set to scrutinise the merger. Companies facing monopoly concerns are regularly forced to carve out and sell parts of their businesses to allay regulatory fears, and the Colman’s disposal follows that well worn playbook.
For the brand itself, the carve out could amount to a reprieve. Selling Colman’s to McCormick alongside the rest of the food division had drawn criticism from experts, who said it was a “shame” that heritage brands were to be owned by US conglomerates. The separate sale means the English mustard could remain in Britain if a domestic buyer comes forward.
Colman’s has been under British ownership throughout its 212 year history. The business was founded in 1814 by Jeremiah Colman, a flour miller who began processing mustard seed at a watermill in Bawburgh, Norfolk. The famous bull’s head logo, symbolising the mustard’s fiery strength and its pairing with British beef, was introduced later by a member of the Colman family, and the brand won a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria in 1866.
The mustard was owned by Reckitt and Colman, the former UK consumer goods giant, before Unilever acquired the brand in 2005. It is also closely associated with Norwich City FC, whose canary yellow strip matches Colman’s branding; the mustard maker sponsored the club in the 1990s.
The disposal is the latest reshaping of Unilever’s food interests as it slims down ahead of the McCormick tie up. The group recently agreed to sell its Graze snacks brand to Candy Kittens in a £36m deal, part of a broader restructuring of its portfolio. McCormick, for its part, has history in the UK market: the US group previously made a takeover approach for Premier Foods, an offer the British company rejected as significantly undervaluing the business.
For prospective buyers, the auction offers something rare: a household name with more than two centuries of heritage, a Royal Warrant dating back to Queen Victoria, and a place on Sunday dinner tables across the country. Who ends up holding the pot, and whether the buyer is British, will now be watched almost as closely as the merger itself.
