Hunch. McCormick, owner of Schwartz, and Unilever, owner of Knorr and Hellmann's, both sell seasonings and sauces to UK shoppers.
The clearance market resolves YES if by 11 November 2026, or a later deadline shown on the CMA case page, the CMA says it will not send the deal to a full inquiry and asks for no changes. A finding of a competition problem, a release under the small-market exception or an abandoned deal is NO, and the CMA case page settles it, with Reuters and BBC Business as backup.
We looked for cases where the CMA checked a planned food deal in which a company bought part of another firm's business, both sold the same kind of product, and the deal was not yet done. We found eight since 2018. In six of them the CMA said yes at its first check with no conditions, each time before the deadline.