Bought, run, grown, sold and lost.
Twenty-six years in food and drink, as an operator, a founder and a buyer.
Mark Strachan has spent twenty-six years in food and drink, as an operator, a founder and a buyer. He has built and sold three businesses. The first began as a catering territory he took back and returned to profit after its franchisor entered administration, and later merged into a food production company he helped double in size through the 2008 recession and exited in 2010. He has run a hundred-strong export fruit packing operation: BRC and GlobalGAP accredited, controlled-atmosphere storage, export programmes into the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and one of five South African packhouses in the Waitrose Foundation.
In 2020 he founded Strachan Investments to acquire food and drink businesses. Between 2021 and 2022 he and his partners acquired six food, drink and logistics companies in four transactions, with combined revenue of around £81m, and grew the group towards £100m. Businesses he was a director of entered administration between 2024 and 2026.
What he does now
Most people advising owners on how to exit have only ever advised. Mark has been the buyer. So when he tells an owner what an acquirer will discount them for, or what the structure of an offer says about the risk a buyer sees in their business, he is not describing something he has read.
He works with owners and shareholders of £3m to £15m UK food and drink manufacturers and wholesalers who are three to five years from an exit. Most are already being approached. Almost none know what a buyer would actually pay. Fewer still know what would quietly come off the price.
