Booming distribution of organic products in France Organic Alliance to be sold to Céréa Partenaire
07TH December 2017
Last year, sales of organic/bio food have been booming in France, reaching a record amount of €7,15 billion, i.e. +20% as compared to 2015. One of the main issues facing retail chains and independent stores in the organic food distribution is the sourcing. This is why specialist wholesalers have a great role to play.Organic Alliance is France nr.1 organic food wholesaler with sales at about €250 million. Owned by Naxicap Partners since its 2014 buy-out and acting as a holding which brings together different organic food wholesalers and many brands, it has been active in the consolidation wave going on in the sector.
In this new development phase, Naxicap Partners and Organic Alliance decided mid-October to enter into exclusive negotiations with PE firm Céréa Partenaire (Unigrains’ investment subsidiary), together with the management team who would participate in the tertiary LBO transaction that would value the business at circa €150 million (10x the Ebitda value in 2017).
Xperts Council was involved in the due diligence phase as several of its Experts were selected to provide insights on organic food distribution and wholesalers organisation in France.
Beyond the traditional questions on market dynamics and the main players, several strategic questions about key competitive issues also had to be handled.
Like the following ones: Which entry barriers for wholesalers? Are regional and national publicly owned wholesale foods markets (M.I.N., e.g. Rungis) catching up in the organic sector? With fast growing consumer prices, concerns about too different regulations on organic production according to the country of origin and potential lower public subsidies for organic farmers in France and the E.U., is there a risk of lower growth in the sector?
Xperts Council has a wide panel of Experts in the organic/bio food sector and will be happy to provide relevant and insightful information on this promising market.
