When it comes to adapting to ever-changing consumer preferences, food and beverage companies have exercised these options: Change ingredients in current products to make them healthier, develop healthy products, or acquire or merge with a healthy foods company.
一般米尔斯和Nestlehave vowed to remove artificial ingredients from some products.Snyder’s-Lance创造了更多无麸质产品，和Kelloggreleased healthier options in a debut of more than 40 products earlier this summer.
However, not all companies have the desire or resources to make sweeping internal changes. Some see value in offsetting lagging sales of stale brands by获取or merging with fast-growing small and mid-sized companies.
"If you're looking to appease shareholders and find where the value is, it's going to be externally, and that's why a lot of these companies are ramping up their M&A efforts," said Anthony Valentino, financial journalist at Mergermarket.
Valentino说，行业兼并和收购正在保持快速的速度。根据Mergermarket的说法2015年H1的消费者趋势报告, the food subsector reported $80.2 billion in deal value for mergers and acquisitions for the first half of 2015, an increase of 129.9% over H1 2014. The H1 2015 deal value was the highest H1 deal value since 2007.
Significant mergers and acquisitions have surfaced this year.
Healthy food acquisitions lead industry M&A
消费者对健康食品和饮料的偏好是文化和观点的全面爆发。尚未制造食品的食品和饮料公司，这些食品被视为“对您更好”，特别是主要的加工食品公司，努力保持相关性。随着更健康的选择，许多这些公司已经看到旗舰品牌DWindletaken their placein consumers' grocery baskets.
一些公司已经获得了较小的自然和有机公司，而不是分配Reband或Retool Retool Retool Retes所需的资源。在过去的一年：
- 一般米尔斯acquiredAnnie’sfor $820 million
- Hormel acquiredApplegate Farmsfor $775 million
- Hain Celestial acquired鲁迪的有机物for $61.3 million
- Mondelez acquiredEnjoy Life Snacks
- Hershey获得了克拉夫纯食物
- Snyder’s-Lance increased its stake inLate July
这些类型的收购可能不会很快停止。Valentino同意了，“我认为它会一致。行业中人们的期望是，食物并购不会去任何地方。”
食品的经济司机并购
经证据和收购已被证明是智能投资。
“公司发现在这些市场中的现有实体比开始新的公司更经济，”食品研究所总裁兼首席执行官Brian Todd表示New Hope 360。“它被视为一个更具成本效益的入学点，而且已经被审查。”
在某些情况下，公司针对有前途的收购，特别是在健康食品空间。
“如果你看看公司景观，你有很多公司坐在一吨现金，特别是战略业务，”Valentino说。“这真的很有机会。......现在你必须浏览中间市场，一些年轻的公司，他们正在突飞猛进。此外，首都（大公司）已经坐在侧链上，非常适合交易环境。“
牛皮纸海因茨：年度合并
目前的交易环境导致了最大的末期之一：Kraft Heinz Co.，它在北美创造了第三大食品公司。
What was interesting is that unlike other mergers, Kraft Heinz came as a surprise.
“我们每天与行业人士交谈，这是一个非常良好的秘密，”瓦伦蒂诺说。“没有报告任何出版物，从沃尔街日报到任何地方，没有真正的泄漏，这非常有趣。几乎在其销售生命周期的某些时候的食物空间中的每一个交易都接触到公众，但这里真的不是一个。我认为这就是真正抓住了一些人的守卫 - 以及它的纯粹大小。“
用牛皮纸从左边的领域出来，有些可能想知道，“为什么合并这个幅度？现在为什么？”
"I know it sounds obvious, but that shift in consumer trends has been emphasized more so in the past few years, and it's really taken a steamroller effect," said Valentino. "That definitely catalyzed it. I don't know if that was the tipping point, but that definitely was a contributor to why you're seeing it now as opposed to five, eight years ago, because I don't think that was really an issue at that point."
食品行业的兼并和收购对消费者来说是财务健康和健康的。作为兼并和收购所证明，特别是各种食品公司之间的常见战略，更多的公司将寻求获取或获得的机会，食品行业的景观将继续随消费者品味和偏好而变化。
