Frutarom Makes Sixth Acquisition, Buys Mühlehof Gewürze AG

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Frutarom announced its acquisition of Mühlehof Gewürze AG (Mühlehof)—a savory flavor company based in northeastern Switzerland—for approximately $7 million. This is the sixth acquisition from Frutarom this year, showcasing the company's strategy towards expanding into burgeoning savory European markets.

Mühlehof works with diverse savory taste materials for food, beverages, flavors, seasoning blends, marinades and ingredients. The Swiss company, with nine employees, has a development, manufacturing and marketing facility which will also be aquired by Frutarom. The Israel-based company will also gain access to Mühlehof's customer base, which includes top Swiss retail chains.

Sales and Acquisitions

Mühlehof specializes in custom flavor solutions for the Swiss market. The company has reported an annual turnover of approximately US $3.4 million (CHF 3.35 million) ending June 2017.

According to Ori Yehudai, president and CEO, Frutarom, this acquisition not only strengthens market leadership in the savory field and in Switzerland, but also enables the company to offer both its customers and Mühlehof customers a broader portfolio of flavor solutions.

“In addition, we will work toward achieving the maximum possible commercial and operational efficiency from merging Mühlehof’s activity with our activity in Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Italy,” added Yehudai.

Reaching Out Globally

Frutarom's acquisitions followed an aggressive direction to gain access to new customers in markets around the world.

“Since 2015 we have already acquired 25 companies, which have been successfully integrated into our global activity and have been, and will continue, contributing to further growth in sales and improved profits and margins through maximal capitalization on the synergies they bring,” explained Yehudai.

“We have an outstanding pipeline of further strategic acquisitions of companies and activities within the scope of our operations and we will continue carrying out our rapid profitable growth strategy,” added Yehudai. "[The strategy] is based on combining profitable internal growth and strategic acquisitions in order to achieve the targets we recently set: sales of at least $2 billion with an EBITDA margin of over 22% in our core activities by the year 2020.”

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