Cereal manufacturer Cerealto closed its 2025 financial year with sales of €574 million, up 9.3% from the previous year.
Its success follows several years of investments, M&A activity, geographical expansion, and a renewed focus into breakfast and snacking which saw the disposal of its pasta business in February.
The changes come just a few years after Cerealto was brought under new ownership in 2022, with CEO Bosco Fonts joining just a year later.
Over the last four years, more than €170 million has been injected into the business. This includes €53 million last year which has gone into the expansion of production capability, strengthening competitiveness and supporting future growth.
While the pasta business has been divested, Cerealto has added Hill Biscuits to its UK portfolio taking its British manufacturing bases to two. Hills joins its biscuit and rice cake production site in Sheffield.
The sale of its pasta business reflects a wider trend across manufacturing, as food businesses look to focus on their core offering.
For Fonts, snacking is the most lucrative market, offering big opportunities for growth.
“That’s where we see most of the consumer trends heading,” he added.
And its growth that the business is after, with its strategy focused on three key pillars:
- Product innovation and improvement – constant improvement and development in cereal bars, rice cakes and biscuits
- Presence and partnerships – accompanying clients where they go geographically and acting as an extension to their business (e.g. as their manufacturing and NPD arm)
- Pace – the ability to innovate, develop and launch quickly to keep pace with rapid trend turnarounds
Making a big bet on snacking
Cerealto’s bet on snacking is primarily driven by the uplift in demand for healthy weight management solutions, with brands (and therefore consumers) looking for low calorie, high protein, high fibre solutions.
But as Fonts explained, it’s not just the contents of our food which is changing, it’s the format and occasion.
“A very important thing in trends is the consumption occasions,” he said. “We do still eat breakfast – but we do that in a less structured way. Or, we eat our lunch somewhere else or in a faster way.”
Indeed, over the last several years, breakfast has transformed from the traditional ‘consume at-home around the table’, to ‘eat wherever and whenever’.
Coupled with the rise of weight loss drugs, snacking has become the way to cater to these new societal norms.
Snacking products are no longer just treats but a delivery mechanism.
Bosco Fonts, CEO, Cerealto
Fonts continued: “We’re going to see smaller portions of food packed in smaller formats for these occasions that are more fragmented and flexible – but those foods are going to be enriched with protein and fibre.”
Protein, fibre, minerals, vitamins – anything that helps to make a product ‘nutritional dense’ is fast becoming the standard across supermarket aisles, as retailers look to push solutions targeted at less hungry GLP-1 users and those following on their tail.
While some may be worried about the impact of GLP-1s on their business, Fonts is excited.
“It’s going to be different…But we’re always going to be eating. It’s just about adapting to trends,” he said.
The snacking ‘kingdom’
While the Hill Biscuits acquisition has helped to strengthen Cerealto’s presence in the UK as it looks to leverage this growth opportunity, its more recent purchase of Fresca Foods will also be playing a key role in Cerealto’s global growth story.
Fresca is an established name in the US, specialising in natural shelf-stable snacks and baked goods. Fonts calls it “an innovation machine”, adding that, in general, the States is “the kingdom of snacking”.
The idea is that the US operation can act as the central hub of innovation – with the team using the trends it sees over there as inspiration for European launches.
“Every market will still have their local products but we’re going to cross fertiliser with recipes and product development,” Fonts confirmed.
Alongside new and exciting launches, the Cerealto boss says the company will continue to press ahead with plans to improve the capacity and efficiency of its global operation.
A projected investment of €75 million is earmarked for, among other things, new industrial projects in Spain and the US to reinforce its growth and competitiveness.
“We are determined to be fast for our clients, and of course this comes with investment, but it’s also attitude,” Fonts concluded.
