Huel provided the ultimate meal replacement option for Danone this morning as the French food giant shelled out €1bn (£865m) to buy the UK brand.
It gives Danone a nutritionally complete offering to future-proof against the relentless march of GLP-1s.
As a consumer brand with a growing grocery presence, loyal DTC customers and a footprint across the world, Danone’s rationale is obvious. In addition to being bang on-trend in terms of consumer demand for all things wellness, the acquisition is also in keeping with its focus on offering a health-led proposition.
Huel also bridges the gap between Danone’s strengths in mainstream dairy (and non-dairy alternatives) protein sources, with brands such as Alpro, Activia, Actimel and its Skyr SKUs, and in global clinical nutrition, where it supplies products for adults with specific health needs.
Bigger, better, faster, more
Danone’s focus will clearly be in driving Huel harder and faster internationally, as well as expanding UK retail distribution. Around half of Huel’s revenues – which are expected to rise 16.8% to £250m in FY25 – currently come from the domestic market. Another 30% comes from the US, where it has already built a $100m business, with most of the remainder from Europe and a small amount from the rest of the world.
On top of the additional scale afforded by Danone, there are obvious and meaningful synergies in procurement, particularly on the whey protein side, and distribution.
In this context, the punchy billion-euro valuation, which likely sits at more than 20 times current EBITDA and almost double that of the December 2022 funding round, starts to make more strategic sense.
Warren Ackerman at Barclays reckons it’s a full price – and on the high side compared with the competitor set – but justified given the strong growth, attractive category exposure and clear international runway. “In short, this looks like a strategically coherent bolt-on for Danone,” he says.
It’s also a healthy payday for Huel’s celebrity backers such as Idris Elba, Jonathan Ross and Dragons’ Den star Steven Bartlett – not to mention founder Julian Hearn, who remained the company’s largest shareholder.
For Danone’s management and shareholders, the deal will mark a significant moment in the turnaround strategy set out by CEO Antoine de Saint-Affrique six months after he took charge of the then struggling multinational in 2021. The group outperformed expectations in 2025 as sales increased 4.5% to €27.2bn and firmly moved into the second phase of the ‘Renew Danone’ plan.
The Huel success story
On Huel’s side, the takeover is a culmination of the extraordinary period of growth overseen by CEO James McMaster and surely counts as one of the greatest UK fmcg success stories of the past decade. It’s a timely reminder to all challenger brand founders and management teams, during this time of seemingly never-ending volatility, of what is possible in the industry.
The business was not even filing full accounts at Companies House in November 2017 when McMaster was set a target of growing sales to £100m. Back then, it sold pouches of powders to customers online, had a team of 20 staff and had barely dipped a toe in international waters.
Today, the product lines extend to shakes, instant meals, vitamins drinks, ‘supergreens’ supplements and protein bars. They are sold in 100-plus countries, while supermarkets sales make up more than a third of the £110m-plus UK turnover and the group employs a 350-strong workforce.
McMaster told The Grocer today the team had hit upon a “magic formula” with its omnichannel approach.
No risk, no reward
Of course, Huel’s success has not been without detractors or controversy. It’s not difficult to find nutritionists to question quite how the ultra-processed products really stack up against the slick marketing claims. The advertising watchdog rebuked Huel twice in 2024 for health claims made by Hearn for the Daily Greens range and for failing to make clear in Facebook ads that Steven Bartlett was an investor and board member.
Despite the strong synergistic fit with Danone, acquisitions of this size are never without risk. There are plenty of examples of big CPGs snapping up brands on the back of DTC success only to struggle to make the model work under corporate ownership.
Indeed, Unilever has become something of a cautionary tale on that front, following its high-profile failures with Graze and Dollar Shave Club.
But given McMaster is relishing the challenge of leading the brand for the foreseeable future, with the business retaining its autonomy and reporting into Danone’s European division, it’s a safe bet Huel will be writing a few more chapters of its ongoing success story.
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