News & Views

O’Connors advises Essential Cuisine on sale to Solina

Essential Cuisine, a Cheshire-based premium food service brand, has been bought by Solina, a European producer of savoury ingredients.

Essential Cuisine was founded in 1995 and employs a workforce of 70. It provides a range of stocks, jus and gravies to chefs across the UK.

The company has been purchased from shareholders Nigel Crane, Neil Corlett and Jamie McGregor, although the current management team will stay with Essential Cuisine to support the next phase of its growth plans. The existing shareholders will stay with the business until the end of July to ensure a smooth transition, with Solina UK country manager Adam set to lead the integration program.

Laurent Weber, Chief Executive of Solina, said: “We have been impressed by the people of Essential Cuisine; they have put together a great product line for food service accounts in the UK which will nicely complement our range of Taste products. This acquisition is a great addition to our existing UK business.”

Crane added: “Essential Cuisine today is an important player in the UK foodservice and ingredients market following fast growth over the last 15 years, based on an effective business model and a strongly motivated team. As shareholders, we realised that maintaining such growth on our own becomes more and more difficult and we decided last autumn to find the right future partner for Essential Cuisine. “Solina is the best partner for us and for the future of our organization, with interesting potential synergies. The combined group will become stronger and a more attractive partner for our UK customers.”

O’Connors advised the shareholders of Essential Cuisine on the transaction.