Serving the GoodLife
From Benelux frozen meat company to a North-West European frozen snack platform.
- Industry: Frozen Food
- Entry: 2014
From Benelux frozen meat company to a North-West European frozen snack platform.
Goodlife Foods, formerly known as Izico, is one of the leading European frozen snacks companies. Egeria acquired Izico via a carve-out from Wessanen in 2014, at that time primarily selling traditional frozen meat snacks (primarily frikandellen and hamburgers) in the Benelux for c. €85 million. Today, Goodlife has sales of c. €200 million throughout Europe and serves as a category partner for customers with a portfolio of on-trend frozen snacks. Goodlife is also significantly less dependent on specific products, customers and geographies.
Based on our experience with former portfolio company Ad van Geloven between 2004 and 2008, which is Goodlife’s main Benelux competitor, we were familiar with Izico and the frozen snack market. When we heard that Wessanen was considering the sale of its frozen snack division Izico, we were able to provide them with an offer based on our experience, which was sufficient for Wessanen to grant us the opportunity to perform due diligence before the auction started. During the process, we were able to confirm the following opportunities:
In the process of developing the above value creation strategy with management, we concluded that buy-and-build would be a tangible way to accelerate the transformation. During our holding period, we have as such done the following acquisitions:
In addition to organic growth by selling excess capacity and developing new products, buy-and-build has clearly helped Goodlife to transform from of a Benelux-oriented frozen meat company, to a NW European category partner with a full range of branded, private-label, vegetable-based, meat, meat-free and ethnic frozen snacks.