A couple of weeks ago people began to notice that Udi's had gone suspiciously quiet in the UK. Over the summer their ranges were pulled from Tesco who used to stock their bread, muffins, bagels and packet mixes and since then they have become evermore absent.

Today a gluten free bakeries stock and packaging has gone up for auction. Nearly a quarter of a million pounds worth of stock, including containers, 4,600kg rice flour and 90,000kg egg white, along with items such as muffin mix, gluxose syrup and salt, all the things a major bakery needs to make gluten free products. The auction is happening in Hawarden, Deeside, see more about this auction on AuctionNews website.

On further investigation we found a listing for the above sale on JPS Surveyors website and it links back to a company called Boulder Brands UK, the company who have owned Udi's since 2013. The listing states the company is in liquidation and the liquidators have ordered the auction mentioned above. Details of them going insolvent can also be found publicly listed on CompaniesHouse.gov.

While we can't find much information about Boulder Brands UK, we do know that in 2013 Boulder Brands UK purchased a Cheshire based gluten free bakery and launched Udi's gluten free bread and from there the Udi's brand grew. From what we know they already existed in the US and had a good purchase in the gluten free industry with Udi's already selling well.

However at the end of 2015 Pinnacle Foods, who own the US version of Birdseye, acquired Boulder Brands, who decided to streamline and also review Boulder Brands UK. The review seemed to come shortly after some of Udi's products, plus some free from own brands labels, were recalled in February due to sesame seed contamination.

Once the review was done with it seems that it was decided to close the UK side completely, therefore meaning Udi's was out of the UK market despire it's major growth, and many thousands of kilograms of product is now up for sale to cover debt costs. You can see more info in this article about the liquidation of Boulder Brands.

It could also be for this reason that many Udi's products appeared in Home Bargains earlier this year. Many products end up there when they are end of line and since Boulder Brands UK knew they were winding up this is the most likely reason they appeared in there but disappeared after a few months (same happened when nutribix rebranded to nutribrex).

It is very unfortunate that Udi's is not longer trading over here, I know that I will miss their chocolate chip bagels! We hope Udi's continue to grow strong in the US under Pinnacle Foods along with the other brands known to be owned by Boulder Brands (Glutino and Earth Balance being too of those) and that they one day manage to make it back to the UK.