Colman’s Mustard is being put up for sale by its parent company Unilever as part of a sweeping merger between the FTSE 100 giant’s food division and US spice giant McCormick.
Bankers from Rothschild have been hired to manage the sale process, which was first reported by Sky News, signalling the formal beginning of a search for a new owner.
The 212-year-old brand was originally set to be folded into McCormick alongside other major Unilever food brands, including Marmite, as part of a deal that would create a combined business worth £48bn.
However, Colman’s is now being carved out ahead of the deal’s completion in order to pre-empt competition concerns from regulators in both the UK and the United States.
Unilever’s advisers concluded that McCormick’s existing ownership of French’s Mustard would have effectively created a mustard monopoly, handing regulators grounds to block the broader transaction.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority and the US Federal Trade Commission are both expected to scrutinise the merger closely for precisely this kind of market concentration risk.
Companies facing such concerns are regularly required to divest parts of their operations before regulators grant approval for major deals to proceed.
“A decision has been taken to market the Colman’s brand and assets to potential buyers in order to proactively seek to address potential competition concerns from the planned combination of Unilever Foods and McCormick,” a Unilever spokesman said.
“Discussions are ongoing and the operations continue as usual,” the spokesman added, suggesting no immediate disruption to the business during the sale process.
The carve-out opens the possibility that Colman’s could remain under British ownership if a domestic buyer steps forward, offering a reprieve from falling into American hands.
The brand has been under British ownership throughout its entire history, having been founded in 1814 by Jeremiah Colman, a flour miller who began processing mustard seed at a watermill in Bawburgh, Norfolk.
Colman’s distinctive bull’s head logo, symbolising the mustard’s fiery strength and its pairing with British beef, was introduced later by a member of the Colman family.
The brand earned a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria in 1866, cementing its place as a cornerstone of British culinary tradition across generations of households.
It was previously owned by Reckitt and Colman, a former UK consumer goods giant, before Unilever acquired the brand in 2005.
Colman’s also carries a strong association with Norwich City FC, whose canary yellow strips closely match the brand’s distinctive yellow colouring, with the mustard company having sponsored the football club during the 1990s.
The proposed sale of such a heritage brand has drawn criticism from experts who argued it was a “shame” that iconic British brands were set to be owned by US conglomerates, a sentiment that the carve-out may help address.