BUYER POOL ANALYSIS
Selling a Food Manufacturing to Strategic / Industry buyers
Industry operators, larger competitors, and corporate buyers acquiring for synergies, geographic expansion, or capability fill. Typically pays a premium for clear strategic fit but discounts for integration cost and overlap.
Quick answers
- What multiple does this buyer pool pay?
- Median EV/EBITDA 13.39x across 43 disclosed deals (P25: 10.04x, P75: 17.3x). Median EV/Revenue 1.82x across 82 deals. Median deal value: $279.72M.
- How many disclosed transactions?
- 85 deals total (85 from 2018+), filtered to Strategic / Industry acquirers of food manufacturing businesses.
- Most active buyers
- Ferrero Group (5) · Premium Brands Holdings Corporation (3) · The Hershey Company (2) · T. Hasegawa U.S.A. Inc. (2) · Mars, Inc. (2) · Lassonde Industries Inc. (TSX:LAS.A) (2)
Recent disclosed deals
Strategic / Industry acquisitions of food manufacturing businesses with named target, named acquirer, and disclosed financials.
| Year | Target | Acquirer | EV | EV/EBITDA | EV/Rev |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Bachan's, Inc. | The Marzetti Company | $400.0M | — | 4.60x |
| 2026 | Calavo Growers, Inc. | Mission Produce, Inc. | $451.2M | 14.4x | 0.70x |
| 2026 | Choolip Inc. | Aptamer Sciences Inc | $11.4M | — | 2.98x |
| 2026 | Farmer Bros. Co. | Royal Cup, Inc. | $83.9M | 3.4x | 0.25x |
| 2026 | SunOpta Inc. | Pegasus MidCo B.V. (:RFRG) | $1219.8M | 11.6x | 1.49x |
| 2026 | The Mochi Ice Cream Company, LLC | Morinaga&Co., Ltd. | $130.0M | — | 2.17x |
What this buyer pool prices for
Strategic buyers — operators in adjacent geographies, larger competitors, or corporate consolidators — price for synergies and capability fill. They tend to discount integration cost and overlap risk but pay above market when there's clear strategic fit (key customer relationship, license, geography, technician/professional team). Multiples are competitive with PE for fee-viable deals; below PE for sub-scale acquisitions.
Methodology note
Multiples shown are computed from disclosed M&A transactions in the ExitValue.ai database, filtered to food manufacturing businesses acquired by strategic / industry buyers. EV/EBITDA outliers outside the [0.5x, 60x] band and EV/Revenue outliers outside [0.05x, 25x] are excluded from medians. Where available, post-2018 transactions are weighted; otherwise the all-time sample is used. Deal counts shown reflect deals with disclosed financials only — total transaction count for this buyer pool is typically 2-3x larger. Full methodology
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