Frutarom Industries Ltd, on the top 10 list for the world’s largest flavors and specialty fine ingredients companies, has acquired the assets of Foote & Jenks, hereby named “F&J”.
The $4 million transaction was completed upon the signing of the agreement and financed through bank debt.
Frutarom operates in two markets, with a focus in flavor compounds and fine ingredients such as natural flavor extracts, natural food ingredients, and natural pharma/nutraceutical extracts. Its rapid growth strategy has included seven other acquisitions in 2015.
"This is an acquisition of growing and profitable flavor activity, Frutarom's most profitable core field. A major part of F&J sales is to customers in the pharma industry who demand advanced solutions for masking the aftertaste of active ingredients contained in their products, as well as high quality, and conformance with strict regulatory requirements,” says Ori Yehudai, president and ceo of Frutarom Group.
Founded in the early 1980s, F&J develops, manufactures and markets flavor extracts for the pharma, food and beverages industries.
The company has 10 employees, a site in New Jersey for its production, R&D and marketing activities, and a broad customer base in North America. Sales turnover for F&J in 2014 was about $ 2.9 million.
Frutarom will work toward fully capitalizing on the many cross-selling opportunities arising from the acquisition and expanding the product portfolio offered to the company's existing customer base.
It will also work toward achieving maximum commercial and operational efficiencies at F&J in cooperation with other Frutarom USA production sites.
The company already operates in this area and views it as an attractive field of endeavor for itself, which also provides a good fit with the activity of its specialty fine ingredients division. That division includes activity in active ingredients with added health value for the pharma and nutraceutical industries.
"We are continuing to implement our rapid and profitable growth strategy combining internal growth and strategic acquisitions,” says Yehudai. “The acquisition of F&J is the eighth acquisition we are completing this year and marks the continuation of carrying out our plan to expand our activity in the US market. We are working towards identifying and executing further strategic acquisitions of companies and operations in our fields of activity, with special focus on fast-growing markets and activities."
