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Food and Drink

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Food and Drink Solicitors

In this highly competitive, constantly evolving industry, a legal team that understands your business is a powerful asset. At Roythornes, we have been serving the food community for over 60 years, advising fresh and chilled food businesses and helping them achieve profitable relationships with their supermarket clients.

Our field-to-fork understanding has given us an exceptional reputation across the industry. We understand the pressures our clients face, so we go beyond pure legal advice, sharing our expertise and drawing on our contacts to help you go from strength to strength.

From crisis management and contract disputes to negotiating corporate transactions, our Food and Drink team focuses on the key issues to help clients achieve their objectives.

We work with a full range of individuals and businesses within the sector, including farmers and growers, packers, processors manufacturers, distributors and retailers. As industry experts, we are members of several specialist associations, including the Fresh Produce Consortium.

How we can help you

  • Health, safety and hygiene regulations
  • M&A work for food sector businesses
  • Regulatory advice
  • Organic criteria and claims
  • Workforce issues, working time, foreign and agency labour
  • Producer groups and cooperatives
  • Breeder agreements
  • Managing customer and supplier relations
  • Traceability issues and COSSH
  • Supermarket protocols and grocery supply codes
  • Competition issues
  • Intellectual property
  • CIF/FOB insurance claims for goods in transit
  • Retention of title claims
  • Development agreements for new food products including fruits
  • Import licences for the importation of produce varieties into the UK
  • Jurisprudence in cross-border issues
  • Advice on compliance with new food safety regulations on labelling and packaging further to Britain’s exit from the EU

Examples of our work

  • Working with our clients on a multi-million-pound hop dispute with one of the world’s largest brewers
  • Helping a group of producers develop and license a brand for their products so they can approach the multiples with a complete added value package
  • Investment into a food business by a third party
  • Working with suppliers to some of the UK’s largest online businesses on detailed contract agreements
  • Helping clients meet ethical standards and dealing with issues arising from supermarket audits
  • Handling a dispute over the value of in-field crops by multiple
  • Formation of the majority of the UK’s Producer Organisations
  • Retention of title claim on a product being mixed with others
  • UK due diligence support to a US food group on the acquisition of an overseas owned UK food group
  • The disposal of several privately owned food producers
  • Advising a UK company on a dispute involving crops grown overseas for sale in a third country
  • Representing large private equity-owned UK food group on six acquisitions and disposals

Our memberships

  • Roythornes is a member of the Fresh Produce Consortium. The FPC is the trade association for the fresh produce and floral sector in the UK. Membership covers every area of the industry spectrum including wholesalers, importers, packers, processors, food service, and retailers freight handlers.
  • The Food & Drink Forum works with a range of organisations throughout the East Midlands to provide support, training, advice, information, and development opportunities to firms in the food and drink sector. Roythornes has been a member of the Forum for a number of years and provides the legal helpline for its members.

Get in touch with our food and drink solicitors

For further information about our food and drink services, get in touch with our team in Alconbury, Birmingham, Nottingham, Peterborough or Spalding.

Read our food and drink brochure