By Gerelyn Terzo, Global AgInvesting Media
Solum Partners is making a fresh bet on Europe’s produce supply chain, teaming up with one of the EU’s biggest names in fruit and vegetables. With $2 billion in assets under management, the Boston, Massachusetts-based agri-business investor has completed a majority investment in Greenyard NV, Europe’s second-largest fruit and vegetable distributor, in partnership with the Belgian company’s founding Deprez family. The deal hands Solum a significant stake in a global platform spanning fresh, frozen and prepared produce, marking the start of Greenyard’s next growth phase as a privately backed entity.
Solum Partners Head of Investments Daniel Sachs told GAI News, “European fresh produce levels of service and infrastructure footprint are becoming increasingly critical to ensuring affordable, nutritious food for end customers across the continent. New investments in distribution logistics, cold chain systems, and packing warehouses all support a consistent, year-round supply of high-quality fruits and vegetables. These technology-enabled supply chains improve reliability, traceability, food security, and product availability for customers while reducing food loss from fork to farm. Greenyard’s unique integrated customer relationship model helps ensure a larger share of what is produced is actually eaten, which unlocks value and potential for all stakeholders across the food supply chain.”
The transaction comes on the heels of Greenyard’s recent delisting from Euronext Brussels, clearing the way for a change in structure. With a takeover bid closing at €7.40 per share, the transaction implies an equity value of around €380 million, reflecting strong investor confidence in Greenyard’s ability to seize rising demand for efficient, sustainable food distribution across the EU.
Greenyard will continue to run its business largely as before, keeping its existing management team, operating structure and long-standing ties with customers and growers intact. Solum’s investment will be directed toward speeding up the company’s plans for improved logistics, stronger ties with growers, digital upgrades and sustainability efforts.
Solum’s Sachs also stated, “This investment reflects our conviction that vertically integrated, technology-enabled food supply chains are essential to serve increasingly complex global food markets. The transition to private ownership enables Greenyard to pursue long-term capital investment, supply-chain modernization and sustainability initiatives in ways that are more difficult to execute within public markets.”
Greenyard Founder Hein Deprez commented, “We were looking for a partner who shares both our long-term philosophy and our conviction in the structural growth of our sector. Solum Partners brings not only capital, but deep operational experience and a strategic understanding of global food systems. Together, we believe Greenyard is uniquely positioned to benefit from rising demand for fresh food, healthier diets and more resilient supply chains.”
Founded by Hein Deprez in Flanders, Belgium in 1983, Greenyard has evolved into a major European food platform with more than €5 billion in annual revenue. Its model spans the full chain, including sourcing, logistics, ripening, packing, distribution and category management. The company now operates in over two-dozen countries and works with more than 10,000 growers, supplying fresh, frozen and prepared fruit and vegetables to many of Europe’s largest supermarket chains. That reach thrusts Greenyard into the center of the region’s produce supply.
Solum has been steadily building out a cross-border produce platform, including in the U.K. As GAI News previously reported, Solum recently backed Lincolnshire, England-based Staples Vegetables, a long-standing family business supplying brassicas and other field vegetables, in a deal meant to support supply security, new technology adoption and broader sustainability gains across the U.K. value chain.
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