LycoRed to buy Nutriblend business
lycopene complex Lycomato, has announced it is to buy the
Nutriblend nutritional supplements business, currently owned by
German pharmaceutical and chemicals company Merck.
Israeli-American joint venture LycoRed Natural Products Industries, producer of the natural tomato lycopene complex Lycomato, has announced it is to buy the Nutriblend nutritional supplements business, currently owned by German pharmaceutical and chemicals company Merck.
While terms of the agreement were not disclosed, Merck said that the divestiture will include two business lines: the nutritional systems business of formulation, manufacturing and packaging of vitamins and minerals for enriching foods, and the vitamins, minerals and supplements trading business that purchases, distributes and sells individual compounds to the nutrition and food markets.
According to Merck, all employees will remain with Nutriblend, which is based in Rochester, UK and has annual sales of between €10 million and €15 million.
Commenting on the sale, Merck's head of life science products division Dr Bernd Reckmann said: "As Merck's Life Science Products division continues to focus more on products and services for the pharmaceutical industry, nutritional products are no longer a core business."
LycoRed chief executive officer Morris Zelkha commented: "The product mix of Nutriblend and its location in the UK make it a perfect fit with our product portfolio and our strategic plans for Europe."
Merck has said it will toll-manufacture selected premixes for Nutriblend at its Darmstadt facilities and Merck's subsidiaries in Spain and Poland will continue to distribute products for Nutriblend.
LycoRed also owns Biodar, one of the world leaders in micro-encapsulated vitamins and minerals and innovator of gelatin free beadlets. In turn LycoRed is a subsidiary of Makhteshim-Agan Industries, one of the world's leading manufacturers of generic crop-protection products, and itself a subsidiary of Koor Industries.
