Chr. Hansen acquires Valio’s LGG probiotic strain for €73m

Chr. Hansen has acquired Valio’s LGG business for €73 million to further strengthen its probiotics offering.

Danish-headquartered Chr. Hansen called LGG “the world’s best documented probiotic strain”, used since 1990 in food and dietary supplements with proven benefits on gastrointestinal and immune health. The company has been the largest producer of LGG products for human dietary and infant formula for more than ten years.

The LGG probiotic strain will be used alongside Chr. Hansen’s own BB-12 strain to further strengthen the company’s microbial platform across the dietary supplement, infant formula and dairy categories.

Chr. Hansen CEO Cees de Jong said: “One of the ambitions in our Nature’s No. 1 strategy is to expand our current business within microbial solutions for human health. The LGG strain and our own probiotic strain BB-12 are the best documented probiotic strains in the world and the acquisition allows us to capture the full potential of the LGG brand across markets for dietary supplements and infant formula offerings, as well as pursuing new opportunities in dairy.”

Chr. Hansen senior vice-president, human health Lasse Nagell added: “The markets for well-documented probiotic strains are experiencing very strong growth in dietary supplements and drives an entire category in fermented milk products, such as yogurt, kefir, etc. We believe that there are vast opportunities for the LGG brand considering Chr. Hansen’s wide geographic reach and deep technical knowledge.”

As well as acquiring the full rights to the strain from Valio, Chr. Hansen has taken over a number of speciality strains already in production, and a bacterial strain collection of around 3,200 strains. The deal will be funded through Chr. Hansen’s own cash position and existing credit facilities, and is expected to close this autumn.

Valio CEO Annikka Hurme said: “An important element in the deal is closer co-operation between the two companies’ world leading innovations teams, which will further strengthen the impressive science backing LGG.”