Danone acquires Huel in €1bn deal to deepen nutrition push

French consumer goods group pays close to $1.15bn for the UK meal-replacement brand, now in 25,000 stores worldwide.

Briefing

Danone has agreed to acquire Huel, the British maker of plant-based meal-replacement powders, drinks and bars, for approximately €1bn. The deal gives Danone a fast-growing foothold in the complete nutrition segment as consumer demand shifts toward high-protein, functional foods. Huel, which began as an online-only brand, has expanded into more than 25,000 retail locations globally.

Danone has struck a deal to buy Huel for close to €1bn, acquiring the UK-based maker of plant-based food powders, meal-replacement drinks and snack bars as the French group pushes deeper into what it calls the complete nutrition market.

Huel was founded by Julian Hearn and built its early following through direct-to-consumer online sales before expanding into bricks-and-mortar retail. The company's products, blended from plant-based ingredients and fortified with vitamins, are now stocked in more than 25,000 stores worldwide. Celebrity investors including actor Idris Elba and television presenter Jonathan Ross are among its backers and stand to receive a significant payout from the transaction.

The deal price has been reported at approximately €1bn by the Financial Times, BBC and Guardian, while Reuters and the Wall Street Journal put the figure closer to $1.15bn to $1.2bn, reflecting currency differences at the time of publication.

For Danone, whose portfolio spans dairy brands such as Activia and infant nutrition, Huel represents a bet that the appetite for convenient, protein-dense, plant-based nutrition will continue to expand. The acquisition follows a broader pattern among large food and beverage companies seeking growth through branded nutrition assets as volumes in traditional categories stagnate.

Analysis

Danone paying roughly 5-6x Huel's estimated revenues for a DTC nutrition brand signals that large-cap consumer staples are willing to pay growth premiums to exit the low-volume, commodity-adjacent parts of their portfolios. Nestle, which owns Orgain and Garden of Life but has not made a comparable scale acquisition in performance nutrition, now faces investor pressure to either accelerate its own M&A in the segment or articulate why its existing health nutrition assets justify current multiples. AG1 parent Athletic Greens and other profitable DTC nutrition brands become repriced acquisition targets on this comp.
For BN.PA specifically, the €1bn outlay on a single brand acquisition tests Danone's balance sheet discipline at a moment when its leverage is already scrutinised following prior divestiture-led restructuring. Huel is profitable but still predominantly DTC with concentrated online revenue, meaning integration risk and retail scaling costs are non-trivial. If Huel's growth rate decelerates post-acquisition, the deal price implies a multiple that Danone's own stock does not currently trade at, creating a valuation overhang for BN.PA equity in the near term.

Connected Events

M&A · 2 months ago

Unilever in talks to offload food division to McCormick

Unilever's parallel move to divest its foods division to McCormick while Danone acquires into health nutrition confirms a bifurcation within European consumer staples: legacy food assets are being shed while functional and performance nutrition commands acquisition premiums. Portfolio managers long consumer staples on a sector-wide basis need to distinguish between these divergent capital allocation trajectories.

Danone acquires Huel in €1bn deal to deepen nutrition push

Analysis

Connected Events

Unilever in talks to offload food division to McCormick

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