Opinion & Commentary: Hovis & Kingsmill merger – what this tells us about the bakery sector

The Hovis-Kingsmill merger is a clear signal of the pressures facing the UK bakery industry. With inflation driving up costs and bread consumption in steady decline, consolidation was always a question of when, not if.

The industry is caught in what could be described as the perfect storm. The UK suffers from some of the highest industrial energy costs in Europe due to its exposure to wholesale gas markets.

Bakery products have a relatively high energy cost component due to the nature of their manufacturing process. While wheat prices have fallen from 2022, prices are still elevated causing sustained margin pressure, making it nearly impossible to pass on costs without accelerating volume decline.

The deal gives ABF a new market leader with 41% share, overtaking Warburtons’ 34%. There’s no doubt this deal will attract regulatory scrutiny.

With continued pressure on the labour government to show economic growth and pro-business policy, the recent formal direction to the CMA to consider economic growth, investment and the needs of UK businesses makes this more likely to proceed than it would have been historically.

Still, expect some conditions to be put in place by the CMA to ensure anti-competitiveness is minimised. What remains to be seen is what impact these will have on the scale and timelines of any financial benefits.

Behind the headline is a tough reality: both businesses have been making unsustainable losses. The real prize here is efficiency, rationalising overlapping bakery networks and cutting costs across procurement, logistics, and manufacturing. The immediate benefit here comes from the non-customer facing teams and functions. Optimising production across sites with shared capabilities means increased production efficiency and logistics benefits.

The new entity will benefit from increased purchasing power as the biggest buyer in the market. Maintaining separate customer-facing teams will be essential to preserving brand equity and retailer relationships in the immediate aftermath of the deal.

This is part of a wider pattern across food and drink, where M&A is being used to counter cost pressures. While some deals, like the Mars-Kellanova tie-up, represent strategic diversification into high-growth global markets, this merger is a clearer example of in-market consolidation, a defensive move to protect profitability in a mature category.

Execution will be everything. Disrupting existing customer relationships now, while both brands are losing share, would risk compounding the problem. In the first 12 months, “getting it right” means prioritising customer continuity by maintaining dedicated commercial teams, while focusing integration on non-disruptive, back-end efficiencies like supply chain reliability.

Longer term, the challenge is to move beyond managing decline. That means addressing structural issues in the bread market by making a strategic pivot from a volume-based commodity model to a value-added one. The focus must shift to innovating around clear consumer trends, developing products with superior nutritional credentials, high-margin speciality lines, and new convenience formats.

About the author

James Watson has expert knowledge of the manufacturing industry, having worked in the retail and food and drink industries; and previously partnered with clients to design and deliver transformation programmes with sustainable improvement.

Argon & Co is a Paris and London headquartered consulting firm specialising in operations transformation services, while focusing on supply chain, procurement, finance and shared services work in particular. Founded via a 2018 merger between French firm Argon Consulting and UK-based Crimson & Co, Argon & Co’s team now comprises over 550 staff – having more than doubled in size since launching a growth strategy in 2020.

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