Silbury Marketing bought by Kagome

On 21 November, Kagome announced its plan to acquire 100% of the shares of Silbury, a UK food distributor of processed tomato and oil products, and make it a consolidated subsidiary.

In its press release, Kagome declared that on January 5, 2026 it plans to acquire 100% of the shares of Silbury Marketing and make it a consolidated subsidiary. Kagome plans to transfer its shares in its consolidated subsidiary, Holding da Industria Transformadora do Tomate, SGPS S.A. (HIT), to Silbury by April 2026. As a result, Silbury will become HIT’s parent company. Through this reorganization, Kagome will establish a structure in Europe that will enable close collaboration between marketing, development, production, and sales functions.

Silbury is a UK food distributor of processed tomato and oil products. Silbury has many customers in European countries mainly focused on the UK. Along with Kagome, Silbury became an investor in HIT in 2007. Silbury holds the exclusive sales rights in the UK for processed tomato products produced by HIT, and the two companies have worked together to expand sales, particularly in the UK market.

In its tomato processing business, Kagome’s International Business possesses the functions of cultivation for processing tomatoes, primary processing, and secondary processing, and “its strength lies in its ability to create value-added solutions that meet customer needs in each of these functions. Kagome’s International Business leverages this strength to produce and sell processed tomato products and others mainly at its business bases in the US, Portugal, Australia, Taiwan, and India to food service and food manufacturing companies that operate regionally or globally. The proportion of the International Business in Kagome’s consolidated results is increasing year by year and Kagome is promoting further expansion of this business with an eye toward medium- to long-term growth.”

In its statement, the company stresses that the European market for processed tomato products is expected to continue to grow in the future, primarily in terms of food service companies. The market is characterized by a geographical division between major production areas (Italy, Portugal, Spain, etc.) and major consumption areas (UK, France, Germany, etc.). A characteristic of consumption areas is that local food service companies with deep roots in the region dominate the market. For this reason, in order to expand business there, it is extremely important to collaborate with distributors who can accurately grasp the needs of consumption areas and effectively connect with production areas.

By making Silbury, with which Kagome has built a long-standing relationship, a consolidated subsidiary and making it the parent company of HIT, Kagome believes that it will be able to build a business structure in Europe that will enable it to effectively coordinate marketing, development, production, and sales functions and that this will increase Kagome’s competitiveness in the European market and further expand its business footprint.

The cost of the acquisition has been quoted to be GBP 25 million (5.0 billion yen).

The press release can be read HERE