Italian rice and pulses business Euricom has snapped up Polish snacks company Sonko for an undisclosed fee.

Euricom has acquired the entire share capital of the Wroclaw-based business from functional sports beverage maker Oshee Polska.

The rice major said it will “further invest in its facilities and brand to continue developing Sonko’s leading snacks product offering”.

It said it has identified healthy snacks as a “key pan-European expansion category” and that snacks are “synergistic” with Euricom’s rice business.

The Sonko brand has been present in Poland since 1989 and the company’s products include healthy snacks like rice cakes, chickpea chips and chocolate crispbreads, as well as a range of rices and groats.

Bruno Sempio, chairman of Euricom, said: “Through our longstanding relationship with Sonko we have witnessed how the firm has developed the leading brand in the market through an attractive product offering centred around snacks.

“We welcome the Sonko team and look forward to continuing this effort further with the full support of the Euricom group. This synergistic transaction will help us achieve our target revenues of €1bn ($1.1bn) in the near term”.

Sonko has a workforce of approximately 300 employees in its two manufacturing facilities and its own nationwide sales and distribution team.

Dariusz Gałęzewski, chairman of Oshee Polska, added: “During the five years that Sonko was part of the Oshee Group, we successfully accomplished most of our objectives. Even during the challenging period of Covid-19, Sonko and its key products demonstrated their resilience.

“Oshee is now focusing on its core beverage business and is planning an acquisition in Western Europe to strengthen its position and drive expansion there”.

Last year, Japanese conglomerate Mitsui Co. bought a stake in Euricom for around Y200bn ($143.3m) for its “partial shareholding” in the company.

The deal gave Euricom an enterprise value of €500m, the rice company added.