Dutch food company Van Oers Group has acquired fellow frozen snacks maker De Vries Snacks.
Van Oers and De Vries sell deep-fried frozen snack products including croquettes to foodservice operators in the Netherlands and Belgium.
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The deal will see the creation of a holding company, United Food Family, owned by three Van Oers Group directors. Van Oers Group, which also supplies retail own-label salad products to Dutch grocers, and De Vries will remain as separate entities, with their own brands and offices.
One of the directors, Van Oers Group MD Willem van de Vorst, said the deal was a takeover in financial terms but added: "In operational terms it's far from that because both companies will remain independent towards the market. It's not really a takeover because then it would mean we do integration, and De Vries would be absorbed by the Van Oers Group, which is not the case at all."
Amid a stagnant market for deep-fried frozen snacks in the Netherlands, van de Vorst said the transaction meant the companies could benefit from increased sale and enjoy savings in areas such as raw materials and packaging.
However, he insisted no sites would be closed or staff made redundant.
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By GlobalData"The cost savings are not going to be materialised in layoffs or making two sites one, or two headquarters one. That's not going to happen because it's very lean and mean to begin with," he told just-food.
Van de Vorst said the different customers of the two companies' frozen snacks businesses meant they complemented each other. Van Oers serves customers including petrol stations, while De Vries focuses on catering locations, snack bars and cafeterias.
"They don't overlap at all basically. They are very complementary. That's the rationale of the merger," van de Vorst said.
He said the deal would also improve Van Oers' access to Dutch foodservice operators in the wake of its decision in 2012 to sell its wholesale arm to Sligro Food Group.
In a sluggish market for deep frozen snacks, van de Vorst saw two main opportunities for growth. He believed the company could increase its range with customers through its expanded offer and pointed to the group's ability to work with customers on innovation.
"We have co-creation, which the bigger companies are reluctant to do because it's sometimes a hindrance for an efficiency of their lines," he said.
For health reasons, demand for deep-fried frozen snacks could come under pressure, van de Vorst went on and the two businesses could look to focus more on oven-baked snacks.
"[Van Oers Group] is already doing this for 25 years because the forecourts are not allowed to deep fry at all. We have a lot of products that are already very well presented towards the consumer [and] prepared from an oven. I think that's a wave that we can ride."
