54 acquisitions in July

July’s tally of 54 food and drink transactions on the bevblog.net database was twice the number recorded for June.

7 involved sums above $500 million and 4 of these exceeded $1 billion.

• By far the biggest was the US Tyson Foods purchase of Hillshire Brands for $8,550 million.

• Next came the ingredients purchase of Swiss-based Wild by US-based Archer Daniels Midland for €2,300 million.

• The deal by Wilmar and First Pacific for Australian Goodman Fielder’s bakery business came in at A$1,320 million.

• Canadian Agropur’s dairy acquisition of US Davisco Foods International weighed in at $1,000 million of sales.

Of the 54 total, 12 were in alcohol, 6 in soft drinks, 5 in dairy and 3 each in confectionery and ingredients.

30 countries were active, led by the United States on 28, followed by the United Kingdom on 8, Canada, China and Spain on 5, then France and Switzerland on 3.