May 12, 2020

By Lynda Kiernan

Ambienta, the largest sustainability-focused private equity investor in Europe, continues to build out its natural flavors and ingredients platform Nactarome Group with the acquisition of UK-based Create Flavours. 

Nactarome Group was created as a buy-to-build project with the target of becoming a leading provider of healthy food ingredients to small and mid-sized food companies across Europe.  The platform, previously called AromataGroup, consisted of Aromata, a leading key supplier of natural flavors and colors for the food industry acquired in 2018, and IPAM, an Italian producer of breading and battering solutions and functional ingredients for the food industry with a focus on the ready-meal market with a line of marinades, fillings, and flavorings.

The name change for the platform was adopted in January of this year when Ambienta acquired Nactis Flavours, a leading French producer and distributor of aromatic raw materials, ingredients, and flavors for the food and beverage industries to integrate into the group. The renaming was also undertaken to reflect a new ambitious project with a unique, strategic product offering across natural flavors, colors, and ingredients that will address all end-markets and applications. 

Further solidifying Nactarome, which has 10 specialized plants across Europe, revenues exceeding €110 million (US$119.5 million), and a customer base of more than 4,200, is the addition to the group of Create Flavours. 

“Despite the uncertainty of these times, we believe that natural ingredients represent solid long-term growth drivers in the food industry, and are proud to continue our project in creating a leading European platform in this space,” said Mauro Roversi, partner and CIO, Ambienta. “Create Flavours represents for Nactarome the most complementary and suitable way to expand in one of the largest food industries.”

Headquartered in Clevedon, UK, Create Flavours is a leading producer of natural top-note flavors for the sweet, savory, and beverage end markets. Despite accounting for less than a quarter of overall flavor profiles, top-notes are the highest value added flavor component, and require significant skill and technological experience to produce. 

“We are proud to have been able to convince Jonathan and his team to join our strategy to build a European player in the market for flavors, colors and ingredients for the food industry,” said Dr. Hans Udo Wenzel, founder, AromataGroup and executive chairman, Nactarome. “Create Flavours, with its focus on natural top-notes solutions, will be able to strengthen our competence in this strategically important area.”

A seismic shift by consumers toward more natural and transparent food ingredients and away from processed and synthetic options is driving strong growth in the natural ingredient category, with global growth expectations of 7 percent, according to Ambienta.

Indeed, the category is one of the highest-growth segments within the broader food industry, and in 2019 the market for natural flavors and colors grew at twice the rate as the food industry as a whole, which remained stable with growth of between 2 to 3 percent. 

“We are delighted to join forces with Nactarome and tap into its significant technical and operational resources,” said Jonathan Jones, founder and chairman, Create Flavours. “This move will strengthen our innovations, products and abilities to provide our clients across the UK and Ireland with the highest service standards. Together, we have a tremendous opportunity to develop a significant position in many of the most dynamically growing segments of the food and beverage markets providing leading-edge clean label and natural solutions.”

– Lynda Kiernan is Editor with GAI Media and daily contributor to the GAI News and Agtech Intel platforms. If you would like to submit a contribution for consideration, please contact Ms. Kiernan at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.