Frutarom to acquire South African company Unique Flavours

Israeli flavour producer Frutarom has signed an agreement to acquire South African company Unique Flavors (Unique) for approximately $6.7m.

The agreement includes a mechanism for future consideration based upon Unique’s future business performance.

The transaction is reported to be complete as both parties have signed the agreement, and was financed through bank debt.

The company explained that the acquisition was part of its rapid and profitable growth strategy.

Established in 2001, Unique has been engaged in developing and producing flavours, as well as a customer base in South Africa, Ghana, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

It also has a research and development, production and marketing site in Pretoria, which is located near Frutarom’s new South African site.

This is Frutarom’s second acquisition in Africa, following the acquisition of flavour company JannDeRee in 2013, which was later integrated with Frutarom’s South African operations.

Frutarom Group president and CEO Ori Yehudai said: "The acquisition of Unique is the continuation of the implementation of Frutarom's rapid and profitable growth strategy and the realisation of its vision 'to be the preferred partner for tasty and healthy success.'

“The acquisition will contribute towards significantly strengthening our positioning in the rapidly growing regions of Africa, expanding the supply of our products to African countries and reinforcing our management and our R&D, production, sales and marketing capabilities.

“We intend to combine Unique’s R&D and sales and marketing platform in Africa with Frutarom’s global R&D and sales and marketing platform in order to realise and leverage the abundant cross-selling opportunities between their activities.

“We also intend to capitalise on the synergies and savings made available by combining Unique’s activity with Frutarom’s existing activity in South Africa.”

Last year, Frutarom opened a production plant and R&D centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, in order to serve the growing markets in the region.