Johannesburg - All Joy Foods' controlling shareholder, Eastern Trading has bought Winplas so it can add to its packaging capacity.
The deal, announced to shareholders on Monday, is for an undisclosed amount. It was announced by AH-Vest, which is known as All Joy Foods.
All Joy, which is listed on the JSE’s Alternative Exchange, says Winplas, which makes plastic bottles and jars, will add to the larger group’s backward-integrated model of producing its own cans and tomato paste.
Winplas has factories in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
The tomato sauce maker says it, through its parent company, will now have increased capability to expand its range of long shelf life food and beverage products.
All Joy claims to be the second largest producer of tomato sauce and other value added products in South Africa.
On its website, it says it started from “humble” beginnings in Newtown, Johannesburg, when its creator and founder, Marci Pather, launched the company in 1987.
Winplas, which says it is the single biggest privately owned and managed PET converter in SA, employs more than 220 people.
In the six months to December, All Joy recorded a profit of R477 068 compared with a loss of R5.98 million in the previous comparable half year.
This came after its attempts to turn the company around bore fruit. Turnover for six months to December 2014 rose by 25 percent.
The acquisition of the bottling plant follows on Eastern Trading’s purchase, in February, of a tomato-processing factory in Tzaneen in Limpopo.
IOL