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# Premier told regulators it had no plans to close factories, and four months after the deal it named one
- URL: https://www.businessbagel.com/premier-rfg-tulbagh-cannery-merger-revocation/
- Published: 2026-10-09T02:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-09T02:29:59.000Z
- Description: The Competition Commission has asked the Tribunal to revoke or rework its approval of Premier's RFG takeover, saying the companies discussed closing the Tulbagh cannery and never disclosed it.
- Author: Christian Maidman
- Tags: Companies, Business Bagel News

When two big food companies merge, the competition regulators want to know whether any of their factories will close. Premier, the company behind Blue Ribbon bread and Snowflake flour, was buying RFG, which owns the Rhodes brand, and both companies said no, then said it again before the Competition Tribunal approved the deal. The Tribunal signed off on 6 March, with conditions that included protecting jobs, and the takeover was done by 30 March.

In July, Premier told the Competition Commission it intended to close RFG's fruit cannery in Tulbagh. On Tuesday the Commission went back to the Tribunal under section 16(3) of the Competition Act, the clause that lets it ask for an approved merger to be revoked. According to Premier, the Commission wants one of two things: the approval revoked and the deal filed and judged again, or the conditions attached to it changed.

## What the Commission says was left out

The case rests on what the two companies knew, and when. The Commission's investigation found that Premier and RFG had already discussed closing the cannery before the Tribunal said yes, even though the Commission had asked them directly about plans to close or combine factories. Keeping that back, it argues, took away the chance to weigh the closure before the merger went through.

The plant carries more weight than its size suggests. It is one of only two fruit canneries in South Africa, and about 200 Western Cape fruit growers rely on it to reach the market. Shutting it would remove the only competitor to Langeberg, the other canner, which the Commission says would effectively hand Langeberg a monopoly. By the Commission's count, more than 400 permanent and fixed-term staff work there, with thousands of seasonal workers further down the line.

## Premier's answer

Premier rejects all of it. It says it did not act unlawfully or withhold anything, and that closing the cannery "was not a decision, intention or merger implementation step" while the deal was under review. It blames the business itself: changing global demand for tinned fruit, rising input costs and a plant running below capacity.

The argument started over jobs. The complaint behind the investigation came partly from the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union, which said the closure would bring retrenchments in breach of the merger conditions. Premier says the overwhelming majority of affected staff took voluntary severance packages, so no retrenchments will be implemented.

The Tribunal now has to hear the application, and it has not ruled. Whatever it decides, RFG has been off the JSE since the end of March. Xolani Nyali of Bowmans called it an "era-defining case", and wrote that how one "unscrambles the egg" is a separate matter entirely.