UK juice maker Coldpress has received investment of £2.3 million from funds associated with two private equity investors.
The capital was provided by Marechale Capital – a previous investor in a number of UK restaurant chains – and its joint-venture partner, Odexia’s Consumer Brand Fund.
Coldpress, which makes a number of HPP juices and expanded into water-based soft drinks in April, called the deal “another significant stride in our ongoing mission to reinvigorate the UK’s rapidly evolving chilled juice market”.
Coldpress founder Andrew Gibb said: “The welcome approach of Odexia and Marechale underpins the significant and sustainable success our vibrant drinks business has enjoyed both at home and abroad in recent months. With enviable growth (67% ex-factory) and celebrated fine food custodians like Boots, Carrefour and Autogrill recently joining our ‘superior juice’ cause, we feel now is the perfect moment to forge ahead, expand our sales and marketing function, accelerate our unrivalled innovation pipeline… and open up other influential distribution channels both at home and abroad.”
Coldpress is currently active in several adjacent categories, including fruit and vegetable juices, smoothies, almond drinks and coconut waters.
Odexia co-founder Carl Atkinson said that, in Coldpress, he was ‘suitably impressed by a well-run and profitable operation that successfully taps into today’s accelerating healthier living concerns’.
“Odexia were especially encouraged by Coldpress’s robust financials that are all too rare among ambitious, modern-day growth companies,” Atkinson continued. “[It is] a well-managed operation that sits comfortably amongst our growing family of opinion-forming disruptor brands.”
Marechale Capital CEO Patrick Booth-Clibborn concluded: “Coldpress is the dominant brand in the European cold-pressed juice market and we’re pleased to have provided our investor clients with such a dynamic and innovative brand investment. At Marechale we are fortunate to have advised and financed some of the UK’s leading consumer and leisure brands, and we are delighted to have backed Andrew, one the leading voices within the cold-pressed drinks sector, and his dynamic team.”
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