Südzucker / BENEO
Squarefield acted as exclusive financial advisor to Südzucker/BENEO on the acquisition of Meatless
On 18 May 2022, our client BENEO, a Südzucker subsidiary specialising in functional food ingredients, has entered into a purchase agreement to acquire 100% of the shares of Meatless B.V. (‘’Meatless’’) and its entire activities.
The move comes amid a huge rise in demand for plant-based products. With the acquisition of the Dutch company Meatless, BENEO is expanding its existing product portfolio to offer a wider range of texturizing solutions for meat and fish alternatives. BENEO sees great prospects for the new range of solutions in Europe as a focus market in first instance, with plans to further expand globally.
Südzucker
Südzucker is a major player in the food industry with its sugar, special products, starch and fruit segments, and Europe’s leading ethanol producer, CropEnergies.
In the traditional sugar business, the group is Europe’s number one supplier of sugar products, with 23 sugar factories and two refineries, extending from France in the west via Belgium, Germany and Austria, through to Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Bosnia, and Moldova in the east. The special products segment, with its consumer-oriented functional ingredients for food and animal feed (BENEO), chilled/frozen products (Freiberger) and portion packs (PortionPack Europe), operates in dynamic growth markets. Südzucker’s CropEnergies segment is Europe’s leading producer of renewable ethanol, with production sites in Germany, Belgium, France and Great Britain. Other products in this segment are protein food and animal feed products as well as biogenic carbon dioxide. The new starch segment comprises AGRANA’s starch and ethanol activities. The group’s fruit segment operates globally, is the world market leader for fruit preparations and is a leading supplier of fruit juice concentrates in Europe.
In 2021/22, the group employed about 18,000 persons and generated revenues of EUR 7.6 billion.
Matthias Magin – Corporate Development Südzucker“Squarefield has been more than a reliable partner and offered us the best support with this acquisition project. In addition to the expertise, the tireless commitment as well as the perfect organisation of the process were of particular importance. The fact that this project could be successfully completed within a very short time is not least a credit to Squarefield.”
BENEO
BENEO has long-term experience in developing and producing ingredients from natural sources for food, feed and pharmaceutical products. These plant-based functional ingredients help improve the nutritional and technical properties of a wide variety of products, by supporting health and optimising taste and texture. The company’s portfolio includes functional carbohydrates from sugar beet, prebiotic chicory root fibre, plant-based proteins and speciality ingredients from rice.
Through a unique chain of expertise, including the BENEO-Institute that provides decisive insights into nutrition science and legislation, and the BENEO-Technology Center that consults in application technology, BENEO supports customers by providing ingredients that promote a healthy lifestyle in a holistic way.
Formed in 2007, BENEO is active in over 80 countries, employs more than 1,000 people and has five state-of-the-art production sites in Belgium, Chile, Germany and Italy
Meatless
Meatless B.V. was founded in 2005, and is based in Goes, the Netherlands. Founder Jos Hugense, who comes from a family of butchers and meat processors and was the third generation to run the family business, decided to switch to the production of plant-based products in 2005. From an innovative start-up, Meatless, backed by venture capital fund SHIFT Invest and angel-investors, has today evolved into a successful B2B supplier to the fast-growing vegetarian and vegan market, producing a broad portfolio of textured products used by major food processors in more than a dozen countries.