Rachel's Organic dairy goods firm set for £20m sale

British organic diary products firm Rachel’s Organic is set to be put on the market with a £20m price tag, it was reported today.

The group, which is one of the UK’s oldest producers of organic diary goods, is being put up for sale by its US-owners Dean Foods, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

Dean Foods is understood to have hired bankers from NM Rothschild to look at the strategic options for the business, including selling it.

The company traces its roots back to Brynllys Farm in west Wales, where the family of its founder Rachel Rowlands had a diary farm.

Rowlands’ mother was one of the first people to sign up to the Soil Association in 1952, and Brynllys went on to become one of Britain’s first certified organic dairies.

Rowlands and her husband Gareth took over 1966, supplying organic milk to the Milk Marketing Board.

But their move into the yoghurts for which they are now best known came about accidentally in 1982 after freak snow storms hit Aberystwyth, preventing the milk tankers from reaching the farm.

The family distributed emergency supplies of milk locally, and converted some of the remaining milk into butter and cream by hand.

Rowlands later researched old recipes for other diary products including yoghurt, leading to the creation of Rachel’s Organic.

The company expanded quickly between 1985 and 1990, leading to a new diary being built, and its products stocked by major supermarket chains.

The business was bought by US-based Horizon Organic Diary in 1999, which was in turn acquired by its current owner in 2004.

No one from Dean Foods could be contacted to comment.