56 acquisitions in March

March seems to have been an average month for food and drink transactions, with 56 registered on the bevblog.net mergers and acquisitions database. Link

3 amounted to more than $500 million:

• $1,600 million in dairy for France’s Danone to reduce its stake in Japan’s Yakult from 21.29% to 6.61%.

• $700 million in nutrition for Clorox to buy Nutranext in the United States.

• €522 million in ingredients for Switzerland’s Givaudan to purchase 40.6% of France’s Naturex.

Among the 56 total, 7 were in soft drinks, 6 in packaging, 5 in alcohol, 5 in dairy, 4 in ingredients and 4 in snacks.

5 were in relatively new categories – 3 in meal kits, 1 in insects and 1 in plant-based. 11 were funding rounds.

31 were within national borders – 18 of these in the United States and 5 in the United Kingdom. 25 were international. 24 countries were involved overall.

The United States featured in 28, the United Kingdom in 9, Canada in 6, Germany in 6, followed by Australia, Denmark and France on 4 each.