AustraliaN fats and oils company Peerless Holdings has officially acquired a major portfolio of brands from Unilever Australia, in the process creating a company that significantly reduces the gap between Peerless and market dominator Goodman Fielder.

Under the deal Peerless has purchased Unilever’s non retail fats, oils and margarine brands together with a long-term agreement for the supply of Unilever’s retail spreads.

The buyout comprises all non-retails brands including Frytol, Six Crowns, Calvay, Saladin, Sunoil, Shef, EOI master craftsman - bakery fats and oils, and SPD, as well as retail brands of Miracle, Copha, Fairy and Kremelta. Meanwhile, under the agreement, Unilever brands such as Flora, Flora Proactiv, Olivio, Bertolli, and Becel will be manufactured by Peerless for Unilever under a long-term supply contract.

Peerless Holdings marketing manager, Daniel Jenshel ,said the acquisition, its largest ever, would deliver a range of benefits for the company as part of its growth strategy.

As well as delivering instant growth and efficiencies for Peerless, it will mean an injection of new technology that it will use to improve quality across its entire range of products and introduce new innovations to the market, he said.

“There is a lot of scope for innovation as a result of this,” Jenshel said. “Unilever has formulations that are cutting edge.”

Jenshel said Peerless would continue to market all of its brands and the newly acquired ones but also plans to bring new products to the market.

It is predicting good growth from the Unilever brands with plans to return some marketing support to them.