Mergers and acquisitions are heating up with European food and beverage companies increasingly purchasing in North America.
Recent high-profile acquisitions include:
- German multinational savory snack manufacturer Intersnack Group’s purchase of Hanover, Pa.-based Utz Brands for $2.9 billion.
- Luxembourg-based Ferrero International SA’s planned purchase of Boulder, Colo.-based better-for-you breakfast company Purely Elizabeth for an estimated $850 million, following Ferrero’s 2025 purchase of WK Kellogg Co. for $3.1 billion.
- London, UK-based private equity firm Investindustrial’s $2.9 billion purchase of Oak Brook, Ill.-based TreeHouse Foods, Inc., announced in February.
The wave of M&A activity is no coincidence, according to finance experts working in the food and beverage space.
MCF Corporate Finance, a corporate finance, M&A and debt advisory firm with offices throughout Europe, reported that M&A deal volume in European food, beverage and agriculture companies in the first half of 2026 grew to 418 transactions, up 25.1% year over year.
Deal growth was concentrated in Europe and skewed toward smaller deals. Andreas Kulcsar, a partner in the MCF London office who leads the firm’s Food and Beverage practice, said large companies are shopping for North American businesses as well as those in Europe.
Many of these companies aim to “short-circuit the market entry by acquiring businesses in well-established markets, like the US,” Kulcsar said. “My European corporate clients tell me, ‘We’ve reached good capacity and good market position in large UK, German or French markets, so where do we go from here?’”
Wait-and-see is over
European companies increased their deal activity in the US in the second quarter of 2026, but “not in a broad ‘everything is back’ way,” the MCF report noted.
Buyers are still selective, but “2025’s wait-and-see” posture appears to be over, according to MCF.
“The most notable transactions were driven by capabilities rather than scale: McCormick agreed to combine with Unilever Foods, and Sysco announced its acquisition of Jetro Restaurant Depot. The common thread is clear: Buyers are paying for hard-to-build capabilities and category relevance,” MCF reported.
The shift toward decisiveness follows an extra year of post-COVID business where companies have further proven a track record of success, Kulcsar said.
The post-COVID era
Some companies have benefited from the struggle that smaller competitors have faced due to COVID, and those winning firms “have been mopping them up so to say,” Kulcsar explained.
“(Other companies) have struggled themselves and kind of rejigged the operations, streamlined them and are now in a much better, healthier financial and operational situation,” he said. “That’s why there are clear winners that have emerged and clear targets that are high up on the radar, and they are going to be highly sought after by interested parties.”
Companies that made it through the pandemic and its aftermath have proven their business model is resilient enough to improve their margins in a difficult environment and continue on a growth trajectory, he said.
Buyers are increasingly ready to move forward with acquisitions, rather than wait another six months, Kulcsar said.
Hot categories for buyers
Kulcsar was tight-lipped on details about his client’s particular acquisition goals, but he did reveal that snacking, confectionery, baked goods and shelf-stable food and beverage products are high on the acquisition agenda.
Businesses with EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) ratings ranging from the single-digit to the low- to mid-double digits remain attractive to purchasers, he said.
“It’s very hard to generalize it and narrow down because there are some interesting businesses also, for example, in the specialty dairy space that are coming up on the radar of some consolidators that are very interesting because they want to differentiate the offering,” Kulcsar said. “We see that also in the functional beverages space. So there are probably half a dozen to 10 food and beverage categories that are currently very active where we see a lot of preparation, but we’re seeing a lot of monitoring of them in a landscape where we expect more transactions to happen in the next six to 12 months.”
The MCF report added that volatility remains in certain commodities, such as beef, produce, sugar and beverage inputs, prompting investors and lenders to “remain focused on margin durability and whether earnings growth reflects operational improvement rather than temporary pricing actions.”
Checking all the boxes
Vertically integrated food and beverage businesses that cover production in addition to distribution and marketing are often of greater interest to companies looking to purchase, according to Kulcsar.
“It will tick more of the boxes and be higher on the agenda,” he said.
Logistics costs are another area European buyers are looking at closely as they consider acquisition targets, he explained.
“Having a local production footprint is not a must per se, but it’s definitely a very attractive feature of a target business in the US,” he said.
Tariffs’ pain factor
On-again, off-again tariffs out of the US are driving deal activity, according to Kulcsar, who said that while it’s not the sole driver of interest from European buyers, some would prefer to purchase US companies to gain a foothold in the market without the expense and uncertainty of tariffs.
Given the choice between two similar kinds of food businesses – one in the US and one outside the US – buyers looking to enter the consumer-driven US market would prefer a US company with its own means of production within the country, he said.
“Having more visibility on the input costs and the logistics costs around that local distribution is very key … for European buyers of US-based targets,” he said.
