Pilgrim's Europe exits UK lamb, sells Welsh abattoir to ABP

Pilgrim's Europe will exit UK lamb processing entirely after selling its Llanidloes slaughterhouse in Wales to Ireland's ABP Food Group and closing its Andover packing site in Hampshire.

The deal hands the Welsh abattoir to ABP's UK meat division, which already runs lamb plants at Yetminster and Kingswinford in England, Lurgan and Dungannon in Northern Ireland and Bridge of Allan in Scotland. All 140 staff at Llanidloes will transfer to the new owner when the transaction completes in December, an ABP spokesperson confirmed to Just Food.

Pilgrim's Europe, the London-headquartered arm of Brazilian protein giant JBS, framed the sale as a portfolio decision following a review of its lamb operations. The company operates roughly 40 processing plants across the UK, Ireland, France and the Netherlands, supplying retail and foodservice under own label and brands including Fridge Raiders, Denny and Oakhouse.

"The proposed transaction will enable continued focus and investment in our core poultry, pork and value-added businesses, while providing opportunities for future growth at Llanidloes within a specialist lamb processor," said Ivan Siqueira, president of Pilgrim's Europe.

The Andover site is not part of the ABP deal. And it is not long for this world.

What happens at Andover?

Pilgrim's Europe has begun a consultation process on a proposed closure toward the end of January.

"Subject to consultation, the company hopes to retain colleagues through alternative employment opportunities across its UK operations," the supplier said in a joint statement with ABP.

Pilgrim's added that Andover's exclusion from the deal reflects ABP's "existing lamb deboning and retail packing capabilities across its UK network". One plant closes; the other consolidates into capacity ABP already owns. That is the economics of the arrangement in a single sentence.

Who is ABP Food Group?

ABP supplies the same retail and foodservice channels from facilities in Ireland, the UK, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland. The company, which owns the Scotch Prime and Surrey Farm beef brands and the Dorset Crown lamb line, generates annual turnover of around €5bn ($5.5bn).

Kevin Cahill, CEO of ABP's UK unit, said: "Llanidloes is an excellent strategic fit for our lamb business. The site is ideally positioned in the heart of Welsh lamb production and has a long-standing reputation for quality, supported by an experienced and dedicated team."

The acquisition continues an active year for ABP, though not all of it expansionary. Earlier this year the group announced job cuts at its Waterford cutting and deboning facility in Ireland, sparing the beef abattoir on the same site. In January it said it would close its Co. Tyrone site in Linden, Dungannon, with the loss of 338 jobs.

One ABP deal is pending regulatory scrutiny: its agreement, entered earlier this year, to acquire the UK beef processor Dovecote Park is under review by the UK competition regulator.

A wider JBS reshuffle

The lamb exit runs parallel to consolidation at group level. Pilgrim's Pride, Pilgrim's Europe's US sister company, is the subject of a full takeover proposal from JBS, which already owns around 82% of that business.

For suppliers and buyers of Welsh lamb, the practical question is continuity. ABP gains a slaughterhouse at the center of production with an intact workforce; Pilgrim's sheds a non-core species and redirects capital toward pork, poultry and value-added lines, where scale favors focus over breadth.