HP Foods

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HP Foods Limited, based in Birmingham, UK is best known as the producer of HP Sauce.

Formerly Smedley HP Foods Limited, it was acquired by Imperial Foods, a division of Imperial Group. HP Foods Ltd. was retained by Imperial's parent company Hanson plc even after the demerger of the Imperial Group. It was sold to Groupe Danone SA in 1988 for £199 million. [1] It was sold by Danone to Heinz in June 2005 for £470 million [2]; however, in October of that year, the takeover was referred, by the UK's Office of Fair Trading, to the Competition Commission [3]. After a review the Competition Commission approved the takeover and Heinz started integrating this new company into the business.