Norfolk's Colman's Mustard put up for sale in £48bn US deal

Colman's Mustard is on the market ahead of a merger between British owner Unilever and American food giant McCormick, in a deal worth £48bn.

McCormick already owns French's, one of the world's biggest rival mustard brands, and combining the two has risked handing regulators grounds to block the wider deal.

Colman's has been part of Norfolk life since 1814, when Jeremiah Colman began milling flour and crushing mustard seed at a watermill in Stoke Holy Cross, near Norwich.

Making and filling mustard tins in 1940 (Image: Colman's / Unilever)

The brand was started in Norfolk in 1814 (Image: Archant)

His nephew James joined the business in 1823.

The famous bull's head logo, symbolising its fiery strength and its ideal pairing with British beef, followed in 1855, and the brand won Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria in 1866.

Production moved to a factory at Carrow Road, Norwich, in 1858, where it stayed for 160 years until the site closed for good in 2020, the final jars having rolled off the line in 2019.

At its peak, the company employed up to 2,300 people in the city.

Workers from Colman’s heading up Carrow Hill in Norwich a century or so ago (Image: Mike Adcock Collection)

The former Colman's factory (Image: Homes England)

Manufacturing shifted to Burton-on-Trent and Germany, though Norfolk still grows and mills the mustard seed used in every jar at Condimentum's plant in Easton.

The brand's former Norwich site is now earmarked for thousands of new homes.

Colman's became part of Reckitt & Colman in 1938, before Unilever bought the brand outright in 1995.

The English mustard brand also sponsored Norwich City's shirts between 1997 and 2001, and revived a partnership on a temporary basis in 2023.

Keith O'Neill, Sarah Thomas and Darren Eadie model the new kit in 1997 (Image: Archant)

Darren Eadie donning the brand (Image: Keith Whitmore)

It has never had a foreign owner in its 212-year history.

The wider deal will see McCormick also take control of household names including Hellmann's, Marmite, Knorr and Pot Noodle, creating a food business worth around £48.4bn.

Unilever will be left as a "pure-play" home and personal care company, focused on brands such as Dove, Persil and Lynx.

Colman's left Norwich in 2020 (Image: Archant)

Jeremiah Colman founded the brand in 1814 (Image: Newsquest Archive)

Bankers at Rothschild have been told to find a buyer, with the sale first reported by Sky News.

A Unilever spokesperson said: "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.

"Discussions are ongoing and operations continue as usual."