vlad sevruk @vladseuruk - Twitter Profile

HUEL ACQUIRED BY DANONE IN $1.15 BILLION DOLLAR DEAL Danone, the owner of brands like Activa & Evian, announced it would acquire Huel, the 12 year old vertically integrated & digitally native meal replacement brand for a reported $1.15B. The 10 figure acquisition comes less than 3 years after Huel raised ~$100m from Morgan Stanley's climate fund in 2023. Huel is based in the U.K., and I've been covering & reporting on their financials year several years now. 2025 sales reportedly hit £250m, +17% YoY, ($335m) - pricing the deal at ~4.6x. That 4.6x is interesting because it looks more like a VMS multiple than a food multiple. Here's a summary of the Huel's full financials for the latest reported year (2024): 2024: - £214m in sales ($287m USD) - 59% gross margin - 8.5% adjusted EBITDA margin (£18m / $24m) Looking at comps and a $1.15B price tag for a 17% grower my best guess is EBITDA is on an extreme growth rate. Huel was breakeven in 2021, negaitve in 2022, breakeven again in 2023, and then saw adj. EBITDA jump to nearly $25m in 2024. At a 20% EBITDA margin the deal would be around 23x. This would lead me to believe there is some decent earn out portion. My biggest take is that the wave for supplements SEEMS to be picking up. I know this could be considered more of a food, but in my mind its VMS and last week L Catterton announced it was considering selling Thorne for $4b. Thats two billion dollar supplement transactions in less than week. Consumer trends are REALLY shifting more than I think anyone realizes towards these supplement businesses. I have been covering Huel for years now (i was first a customer way back in 2018!), and Its been awesome to follow along from the sidelines. There is an absurd amount of detail to get into here, so I'm sending out an emergency newsletter ASAP. Make sure to subscribe at the link pinned to my profile to get the full financials for Huel, comps, investor IRR estimates, and more.