Private label cereal and snacks giant Cerealto has inked a deal to sell its €100m-plus pasta division to Cerealis, Portugal’s biggest cereal miller.
The divestment has come as part of Cerealto’s strategy to focus on its biscuits division and breakfast cereals and snack division, which turn over around €220m and €200m respectively, according to Spanish daily Expansión. The group as a whole turned over around €570m annually pre-sale.
While the pasta division was profitable and had benefited from “sustained investment” in recent years, Cerealto said it would “best reach its potential” under a specialist pasta producer such as Cerealis.
“This agreement is an important step in Cerealto’s growth strategy, allowing us to focus our efforts on global snack and breakfast categories, where we have a deep specialism and strong headroom for growth,” said Cerealto CEO Bosco Fonts.
“Our pasta business has been high-performing and value accretive, and has benefited from substantial capital investment in recent years,” he added. “We are pleased to have met a new operator that is a specialist in the pasta [industry] and has the capability to continue developing the business, while retaining the employment and working conditions for our colleagues in the pasta business unit.”
Cerealis’ pasta division had been prepared for sale by a 2024 spin-off into a separate entity named after its extensive manufacturing facility in Venta de Baños, Spain, which it called Cerealto Pasta VB3.
No changes were envisaged to the workforce, operations, or day-to-day activities of the business following the transaction, Cerealto said.
“Once necessary authorisations are obtained, we will begin a transition phase to ensure a seamless transfer to the new owner. Until then, the business will continue to operate as normal, fully meeting our commitments to customers,” Fonts added.
Cerealto is one of the largest manufacturers of biscuits, cereals, snack bars and corn and rice cakes in the world, selling into Europe, the UK, the US and Mexico.
Pre-sale it employed 3,600 staff across 12 manufacturing sites.
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