Kettle Foods has announced its acquisition of Cornpoppers Ltd – a UK popcorn producer based in Wednesbury, West Midlands.

Established in 1979, Cornpoppers is a privately-owned family business supplying high quality branded and private-label popcorn products to wholesalers and retailers.

The UK popcorn market remains one of the fastest growing categories within the UK snack food industry, up by 10% over the last year as consumers increasingly seek out lighter snacking options.

Kettle Foods’ managing director Ashley Hicks with Cornpoppers’ former owner Balvinder Nijjar.

In 2016, Kettle Foods acquired Metcalfe’s skinny popcorn, reflecting the company’s ambition to build a portfolio of snack brands and evolve into a more widely based premium snacking leader in Europe. The addition of Cornpoppers to the Kettle Foods’ family represents a further commitment to meet the high expectations of customers and consumers, and to the long-term future of the popcorn category.

Ashley Hicks, managing director of Kettle Foods, commented: “The acquisition of Cornpoppers Ltd is the next exciting step in our transition to build Kettle Foods into a dynamic European snack foods business. We’re confident that this will create more opportunities with our trade partners in jointly evolving the full potential of the popcorn category and look forward to welcoming the team at Cornpoppers to Kettle Foods and working with them on making great tasting popcorn.”