Food & Beverage Q3 2018 Insights

Allyum's industry expert, Martin DELÉPINE, gives his Q3 2018 insights on the F&B industry

The deal flow observed on Q3 2018 is clearly lower than in the previous quarters. We have to be careful when interpreting these data and before making a more global statement based only on one quarter. It would be interesting to keep on watching the trend over time and a maintained decrease in the future may transmit a signal to the local market (Benelux & France) that F&B segment is becoming more and more consolidated.
If this assumption verifies itself in the future, it can be important for growing companies to anticipate that potential fact and to seize the opportunity to grab remaining key players which doesn’t yet belong to other major actors.
Another interesting fact may be the impact on this on the price paid to acquire F&B companies and we already observed over past years an increase which may keep on growing.
Next to that, Q3 transactions are very good examples that M&A can be fully integrated in different development strategies from “specialization” with reinforcing its presence in a core market (ex: Coca-Cola acquiring another well-known soda brand “Tropico”) to “diversification” with capturing a new “product-market” couple (ex: Lotus acquiring Kiddylicious allowing it to offer new products to a new younger customer segment).