First time ever – 100 transactions in a month

January 2021 saw an all time record in the number of food and drink transactions registered on the Zenith Global mergers and acquisitions database, with 100 being added during the month.

This beats the previous record of 90 in October 2020, after peaking at 80 in August 2018.

3 of the January deals involved sums of $500 million or more, with 1 of them reaching $5,000 million.

• $5,000 million in packaging for Ineos to buy BP’s aromatics and acetyls business, both UK-based
• $600 million sales from the Italian dairy merger of Agriform and Parmareggio

• $500 million for China’s Youran to purchase 2 Chinese dairy farm hubs from New Zealand’s Fonterra.

Of the 100 total, 11 were in packaging, 8 in alcohol, 7 in dairy, 7 in snacks, 7 in soft drinks, 6 in meat-free, 6 in nutrition, 5 in equipment, 5 in ingredients and 4 in meat.

41 were inside individual countries, 26 of these in the United States, 7 in the United Kingdom and 3 in Canada. 59 were international, covering 30 countries.

Overall, 50 involved the United States and 25 the United Kingdom, followed by Germany on 7, Sweden on 7, Canada on 6, Netherlands on 6, Switzerland on 6, Ireland on 4 and Italy on 4.

As an indication of how much has changed over the past 10 years, 19 of the 100 were funding rounds and 16 were in the free-from group of plant-based, cell-based, dairy-free and meat-free.