Valeo Confectionery

Did You Know?

• In April 2006, The Grocer magazine voted Tangerine Confectionery the best own-label confectionery supplier in the UK.
• The company's name changed to Valeo Confectionery in December 2019, after Valeo Foods completed its acquisition in August 2018.
• The Pontefract site, acquired in the 2008 Monkhill Confectionery deal, was announced for closure in October 2025 and shut in July 2026.

History

In early 2006, Toms Confectionery rebranded as Tangerine Confectionery after a new management team bought it from Toms International of Denmark. The company’s UK operations had been built over the previous decade by acquiring three traditional sweet makers: Taveners, Daintee, and Parrs, between 1992 and 2001. Originally focused on own-label supply in England, Tangerine then bought those same three businesses from Toms of Denmark later that January. By April, The Grocer magazine had named it the best own-label confectionery supplier in the UK. That August, it purchased the confectionery division of Blackpool’s Burton’s Foods, pushing its turnover to £60 million and making it the largest independent confectionery firm in the country.

Two years later, in January 2008, Tangerine bought Monkhill Confectionery from Cadbury plc for £58 million. This deal gave it factories in Cleckheaton, Pontefract, and York, a distribution centre in Holmewood, and brands including Barratts, Sharps of York, Jameson’s, Trebor Basset Mints, Butterkist, and Pascall. Two months after that, the company said it had no intention of shutting its York plant, even though it told workers to stay home during Easter week. Around the same time, Blackpool staff voted to take industrial action after rejecting a 2.5% pay rise.

In April 2009, the Sunday Times and PricewaterhouseCoopers ranked Tangerine 23rd on the Profit Track 100, making it the highest-placed company from the North West. That August, the Halal Food Authority granted it a quality Halal Seal of Approval for 150 products across its Barratt, MOJO, Princess, and Taveners Proper Sweets ranges.

March 2010 brought legal trouble: the company was found guilty of two Health and Safety violations after an employee died at its Poole, Dorset factory. It was fined £300,000 for each count, plus costs. In 2012, officials announced the Poole site would close in 2013. That same year, Tangerine bought Smith Kendon, the maker of York Fruits jelly sweets. On 5 February 2013, the Halal Food Authority removed the company from its list. Then in 2014, Tangerine said it would shut its Clifton Road factory in Blackpool, though its other site on Vicarage Lane would keep operating.