Geldards advises Sunridge Partners on sale of JDM Food Group to Newly Weds Foods

Geldards has successfully advised specialist food, beverage and agribusiness investment firm Sunridge Partners on the sale of one of the UK’s leading food and ingredient manufacturing business JDM Food Group (“JDM”) to Newly Weds Foods.

Sunridge Partners first partnered with JDM in 2021 and the collaboration led to a significant expansion of the business and production capabilities, as well as an increased workforce, all of which resulted in the successful positioning of JDM as an innovative culinary leader in sauces.

The sale of JDM to Newly Wed Foods offered the potential for the business to scale up across the UK and mainland Europe. Headquartered in Chicago, Newly Weds Foods is a global leader in the production of food coatings, seasonings, sauces, the partnership enables JDM to further expand its market reach.

Geldards team led by Corporate Partner and Head of the Food Sector team Peter Seary provided a specialist range of legal advice to conclude the sale, supported by colleagues across the firm to provide a full service integrated approach Manjot Shokar (Corporate), Sophie Taylor (Corporate), Jenny Chatten (Banking) Sarah Bailey-Parke (Banking), Andrew Evans (Tax), Stuart Walters (Commercial Property), Peter Ward (Commercial) and Sue Jennings (Employment) and Benedict Wills (Corporate).

Peter Seary, Corporate Partner and Head of Food Sector at Geldards commented:

“Geldards was delighted to support Sunridge Partners on the sale of JDM Food Group to Newly Weds Foods. It has been great to have been on the journey with Sunridge and JDM from the day one origination ending on the sale.

It was a delight to work with the highly professional agri-foods team the team at Sunridge Partners of Hugues Marchand, Philip Saumweber, Michael Voice and Ben Burgess and especially to have the highly professional input from JDM’s Aisling Kemp and James Willows Chamberlin and their wider senior management team. Our team was pleased to provide an integrated approach drawing on expertise from departments across the firm to ensure the transaction was concluded on time and smoothly and it represents another excellent transaction in the specialist food ingredients sector for Geldards.”

 Philipp Saumweber, Managing Partner of Sunridge commented:

“Thank you to the team at Geldards for the tremendous effort in helping us get this deal over the line. We really appreciate your support and invaluable advice.”

Hugues Marchand, Partner of Sunridge added:

“We truly value the great work on this transaction! You completed the job in a calm and highly professional manner despite the challenging time scale. ”

Michael A. Voice, Partner at Sunridge commented:

“Thank you, Peter, for all your support and partnership over the years, which included being our trusted legal partners from day one of the exciting JDM journey.”

Aisling Kemp, CEO of JDM Food Group added:

“A huge thank you for all the hard work over the last few weeks. It’s a fantastic achievement for all parties and we would not have realised these results without the help and dedication of the team at Geldards.”