Dive Brief:
- IFF is selling its food ingredients business to CVC Capital Partners for $4.3 billion, the latest move by the company to focus its sprawling business and improve profitability.
- The flavors, fragrances and ingredients supplier said it will retain a 10% stake in the unit to allow further collaboration and cooperation between IFF and Food Ingredients, while allowing IFF and its shareholders to participate in the growth of the business.
- IFF’s food ingredients business makes texturants, emulsifiers and plant-based solutions. The division, IFF’s largest, generated nearly $3.3 billion in sales in 2025, a decline of 3% from the prior year.
Dive Insight:
IFF said the divestiture will leave a company that is more focused, stronger financially and better able to achieve its growth and profitability objectives.
The sale of the food ingredients business continues a recent pattern of IFF shedding assets, following the $26.2 billion purchase in 2021 of DuPont’s nutrition business. During the last several years, IFF said it sold 13 non-core businesses, generating nearly $10 billion in gross proceeds.
“This transaction represents an important strategic milestone in our ongoing portfolio optimization initiative, allowing us to further concentrate resources on our higher-growth, higher-margin segments,” Erik Fyrwald, IFF’s CEO, said in a statement.
The sale is expected to close by the end of the second quarter of 2027. Once completed, IFF will have three core businesses: scent, taste, and health and biosciences. The taste segment, which accrued $2.5 billion in sales in 2025, provides flavor solutions to food and beverage companies.
The IFF deal represents what is shaping up to be an active period of dealmaking in the ingredients space.
Tate & Lyle said this month it is considering a takeover bid of 2.7 billion pounds, or $3.7 billion, from larger rival Ingredion. And last week, Splenda owner Heartland Food Products agreed to buy the Americas business of sweetener maker Whole Earth Brands, which owns rival sugar substitute brand Equal.
