Finnish plant-based company, Oddlygood, has taken another step towards its ambition of becoming one of the leading plant-based companies in the UK and Europe, with the acquisition of pioneering British plant-based drinks company, Rude Health, for an undisclosed sum.
Oddlygood is a key player in the Nordic plant-based market, where in six years it’s grown to an anticipated turnover close to €50m this year and a widely stocked range of plant-based alternatives to milk, cheese, desserts, cooking products and yoghurts.
It launched its plant-based puddings into the UK market in 2023 and established itself in the competitive UK plant-based drinks category earlier on this year. Oddlygood’s mission is to raise the standard of plant-based food and drink. The UK is a key territory for the brand and its acquisition of Rude Health will further diversify the business beyond the Nordics and drive both UK and European growth.
Camilla and Nick Barnard co-founded Rude Health in 2005 at their kitchen table. Since then they’ve steadily grown the business and its offering, becoming a top five UK plant-based drinks brand alongside its range of cereals and snacks. The brand, which has always focused on quality ingredients and taste, is now widely available across major retailers and foodservice operators and has a successful online presence. It has garnered a loyal customer base – even opening its own café in London which has been running since 2016. This year, the brand is on track to deliver £28m revenue – its biggest year to date. And recently, Rude Health has recertified as a BCorp with a score of 120.7, putting it in the top 3 food and drink brands in the UK.
Rude Health will continue to make the products everyone has come to know and enjoy. Oddlygood will establish a base for its UK operations and support both brands’ UK and European expansion. The move will see Oddlygood increase its market share of the competitive UK plant-based drinks category, worth £511m.
Camilla Barnard, Co-Founder of Rude Health, says; ‘’We created Rude Health at our kitchen table, to make healthy eating a celebration, not a sacrifice. From these basic beginnings mixing muesli we branched out into more cereals and then dairy alternative drinks. The Rude Health® brand has grown beyond anything I could imagine to become a household name. Now is the right time to find a partner who can help take it to the next stage of success and Oddlygood shares so many values and the ambition to make this possible.’’
Tim Smith, CEO, Rude Health, commented: ‘’Joining forces with Oddlygood opens up new opportunities for growth and innovation, and our shared missions around taste, quality and the crucial role of plant-based food and drink make this a natural fit. We’re looking forward to working together and leveraging our strengths and making the healthy choice a celebration (not a sacrifice) for our customers. It’s an exciting new chapter for the brand and the team.’’
Niko Vuorenmaa, CEO of Oddlygood, added: ‘’Our ambition is to become one of the leading plant-based companies in the UK and Europe and this acquisition will help accelerate this, but key to its success is the strong alignment between Rude Health and Oddlygood.
Rude Health is one of the biggest success stories in British plant-based food. It’s nothing less than impressive the way the team has grown its product range alongside such a distinctive and well thought of brand to deliver commercial success.
Both Oddlygood and Rude Health have complementary portfolios, target audiences and capabilities which will enable us to grow both brands alongside each other. What we’ve achieved with Oddlygood in such little time is down to the expertise and passion of our team. We’ll focus the same attention and care to Rude Health and we’ll work in partnership with the team there to build on its reputation as a high quality and loved brand and partner.’’
The global plant-based dairy alternatives market is re-gathering pace and is expected to grow to $69 billion by 2030[4], making it a hot bed for new investment and innovation. This will be Oddlygood’s second acquisition, after acquiring Nordic plant-based brand, Planti, in 2023 to further drive growth and market-leading innovation.
The drive for high quality innovation in this sector is key to this acquisition. Oddlygood’s founding company, Valio, has over 100 years’ dairy expertise in addition to plant-based meat and dairy alternatives. A key player in the international dairy products market, with a turnover of €2,3bn, it launched Oddlygood in 2018 to apply its expertise to a new and relevant sector. It later established it as a spinoff in 2021 and it’s now growing globally at over 40% year-on-year. The brand’s commitment to innovation includes the production of its signature Barista Oat drinks, where it uses all of the oat flour, delivering great taste and quality whilst minimising oat waste.
Vuorenmaa added: ‘’The UK market is notoriously competitive with established leaders but we believe that bringing these brands and teams together will reinvigorate the market and re-engage both new and existing users of plant-based products. We have total confidence in the future of the UK and European markets and the quality of the brands and the products now in our portfolio.’’
Value sales in the UK dairy alternatives market are forecast to increase by 50% over the next five years.
For this acquisition, Rude Health was advised by Spayne Lindsay & Co, the leading consumer-focused M&A firm. Oddlygood was advised by leading Nordic M&A advisor Access Partners.
