Huel scooped up by French food giant Danone
Huel, the meal-in-a-bottle brand backed by Steven Bartlett, is to be bought by French food giant Danone in a deal worth around €1bn, winning its British founder a £400m payout.
The protein shake maker has agreed to a sale to the French consumer goods company as part of its pivot towards nutrition under its new chief executive.
Julian Hearn, Huel’s founder, is set to walk away with more than £400m after agreeing to sell his entire stake to Danone.
Huel has attracted a swathe of celebrity investors since it was set up by Hearn in 2014, including Idris Elba and Jonathan Ross.
The Hertfordshire-based company is well-known for its banana, vanilla and chocolate flavoured drinks, which are sold in supermarkets and are popular with fitness influencers.
Huel took £214m in revenue last year, up 16 per cent from the year prior, as pre-tax profit almost tripled to £13.8m.
Its meal-replacement milkshakes are sold in 25,650 stores, according to its most recent accounts, with its offering having grown from 11,250 the year before.
Danone accelerates nutritional pivot
Paris-listed Danone, which produces Activia yoghurt, saw its shares slip by just under one per cent on Monday, leaving its share price down nearly 11 per cent in the year so far.
The French firm said it is impressed by Huel’s “fan base” in the UK, Europe and the US, and will use the acquisition to speed up its expansion into the nutrition market.
Chief executive Antoine de Saint-Affrique said: “Combining their range and best-in-class digital capabilities with Danone’s global reach and deep nutritional expertise offers exciting opportunities into the new and fast-growing nutritionally complete space, in line with our Renew Danone strategy.”
The company’s “Renew Danone” push, launched in 2022, has seen it target nutritional foods in a bid to shore up its finances.
Saint-Affrique, who took the helm in 2021, has been pushing the firm to focus on its core portfolio of brands and emphasise its social responsibility, which it says is to “provide people access to health through food”.
Huel chief executive James McMaster said: “With Danone, we will now have the infrastructure, distribution and R&D capability to go further, into new markets and to more people, as demand for convenient, complete nutrition continues to grow.”
Huell’s sale was advised by law firm Pinsent Masons and Danone is set to pay around €1bn (£870m) in the deal, according to the Financial Times.
Bartlett, who presents the Diary of a CEO podcast, stepped down from the nutrition brand’s board last year, as did former Wagamama boss Emma Woods.
Huel has defended the presence of trace amounts of heavy metals in its products after a consumer watchdog group said it found unsafe levels of lead in more than two thirds of protein powder and milkshake samples.
The nutrition brand said small amounts of lead and other metals are found in a range of foods including vegetables and grains.