Spanish bakery and pastry business Airos Delicatessen is merging with local breakfast-cereal maker Esgir, a transaction backed by asset manager Impact Bridge.
The merger will create a “leading gluten-free food company” with combined pro-forma annual revenues of close to €30m ($34.8m), Impact Bridge said in a statement.
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Financial terms were not disclosed.
Martorell-based Airos makes gluten-free bakery, pastry and frozen products for retail, foodservice and other customers. The free-from baker employs more than 150 people and has focused exclusively on gluten-free products since 2007.
Meanwhile, Valencia-based Esgir manufactures breakfast cereals that are gluten-free, sugar-free and lactose-free.
The resulting combined entity will be called the Airos Group.
The combined company is expected to benefit from “product complementarity”, a “strong commercial presence” among Spanish retail and foodservice operators, Airos’ in-house R&D team, and two production facilities, the statement added.
Impact Bridge senior director Cristiano Bartolini said: “People with celiac disease and gluten intolerance are a historically underserved community with growing demand, and at Impact Bridge we want to address this need.
“Airos is the ideal platform to lead this consolidation project in a high-impact sector and offer this community a wide variety of high-quality products, thanks to a first-class management team, a strong market position and a proven capacity for innovation.
“Esgir is the perfect complement, as it significantly expands the product offering and industrial capacity, while also providing a complementary customer base with clear commercial synergies.”
As part of the agreement, Airos founder and CEO David Martínez will remain a shareholder and continue to lead the group alongside its existing management team.
“Bringing Esgir into the group and having its support enables us to expand our range, invest in production and innovation, and strengthen our commercial presence, without giving up anything that makes us who we are,” Martínez said.
The new business plans to invest in additional production capacity, new products, and efficiency initiatives. It is also targeting international expansion and further acquisitions in Europe with a pipeline of transactions “already identified”, the asset manager said.
In a LinkedIn post, Airos confirmed the plans, and said the group aims to reach a combined turnover of €60m within five years.
The post added: “To support this growth, we plan an initial combined investment of €10m to expand and modernise our production capacity, including a new Esgir factory and the automation and digitalisation of Airos’ processes.”
