NPM portfolio company HAK is buying a 100% share in Peter van Halder Grootverbruik BV in Den Bosch, the Netherlands. Both parties signed an agreement to this extent last week. Peter van Halder, established in 1985, processes fresh vegetables (including as ready-to-cook meal components) and supplies them in bulk packaging (500g – 5kg) to professional kitchens such as those in care facilities and restaurant chains. The acquisition has been approved by the works council of HAK’s holding company, Neerlands Glorie Groente & Fruit B.V. Neither party is disclosing financial details of the transaction.
The acquisition will enable HAK to further strengthen its key role in the strong trend towards vegetable food consumption and, with new freshly chilled products on the basis of vegetables and beans, to achieve its mission to support consumers in enjoying tasty and easy-to-cook vegetables and pulses.
Under the umbrella of HAK (Neerlands Glorie Groente & Fruit B.V.), Peter van Halder (turnover approximately €10 million, 30 employees) will continue its operations autonomously and under its own name. With the acquisition, HAK obtains in a single stroke the production capacity and a development platform to accelerate innovation and introduce to market HAK-branded new vegetable products in the chilled vegetable segment for retail customers (supermarkets) as well produce them in house and organise daily delivery through Peter van Halder’s existing logistics platform. In addition, HAK will be able to enter new and existing HAK-branded products such as vegetables and pulses to the foodservice and out-of-home sales channels that Den Bosch-based Peter van Halder is active in.
New consumption moments with vegetables and pulses
HAK CEO Timo Hoogeboom says the acquisition confirms the company’s extension into the chilled food market, while choosing for reasons of quality assurance and innovative power to maintain control over the entire chain from sourcing, product development, production and distribution to sales and marketing.
‘We are achieving a vast increase of our absolute customer base by going into chilled food and thereby creating new consumption moments for our vegetables and pulses. Our main volume will remain in long-life vegetables and pulses in glass jars, processed through pressurised heating without added preservatives (wecking). In addition we are seeing very rapid growth (+168%) in our new packaging method of pulses in pouche. Furthermore, we will now be developing vegetable and pulse products with a shorter shelf life, which will enable us to offer our customers new propositions for easy and tasty consumption of vegetables and pulses at any time of the day. Jars, pouches and chilled products together will form a single portfolio in which the different product and packaging combinations are perfectly complementary. With the addition of chilled products we will be able to play an even greater key role in the trend towards increased consumption of vegetable food and to achieve our mission: to make it easier for consumers to enjoy tasty vegetables and pulses.’
HAK on course
Alongside the announcement of the acquisition, HAK also disclosed its 2016 annual results. The year 2016 has been a fruitful one for HAK: it realised a turnover of €76.8 million, with continued growth in its core segments vegetables, pulses and applesauce by 2%. Its normalised EBITDA of €11.1 million increased by 9.9%. As in 2015, HAK led and drove the beans segment. Here, turnover increased by a little over 15%, significantly above overall market growth of 11%. This drove up HAK’s market share in the pulses segment to over 36%. ‘We are well on course of the strategy we set out in 2012 and it remains our firm commitment to increase consumers’ consumption of vegetables and pulses.’
After the acquisition by HAK, Peter van Halder Grootverbruik BV will operate autonomously and under its own name, but under the umbrella of the canned vegetables manufacturer based in Giessen, the Netherlands. Both companies will develop new product concepts based on vegetables and pulses in the chilled food segment. Arnoud van Os (left), director of Peter van Halder and Timo Hoogeboom (right), CEO of HAK, together in the field to inspect the quality of this year’s lettuce crops.
