Most F&B founders are sitting on a number they have never actually been given.
Your accountant has an estimate. Your instinct has a figure. Neither is the number a buyer would actually pay. Find out what your business is really worth - built on live F&B deal data, not generic multiples.
Confidential · No obligation · Takes 4 minutes · Built for UK F&B founders
Kelvin Lane Growth Partners was built around one consistent observation from the inside of F&B M&A.
Our founder, Mike Ferguson, spent five years leading Food and Beverage M&A at CDI Global - one of the world's leading mid-market advisory firms - before that at Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, and William Grant and Sons. Across hundreds of transactions throughout the UK and Europe, a pattern emerged that shaped everything about how this firm was built.
Founders who had spent a decade or more building something real were arriving at transaction processes without the information they needed. They did not know their normalised EBITDA. They did not know which buyers were active in their category. They did not know what was suppressing their multiple or what fixing it was worth in pounds of enterprise value.
Their accountant had a number. It was almost always wrong. Their broker had an incentive to complete the deal. Their bank had an interest in the debt. Nobody was sitting on the founder's side of the table, telling them the truth about what the business was worth - and what to do about it.
Kelvin Lane Growth Partners exists to be that adviser. F&B only. Project-based. With a fee structure that means we only win significantly when our clients do.
About the Firm →"The founders who achieve the best outcomes are not always the ones with the best businesses. They are the ones who understood their number early enough to do something about it - and had the right adviser on their side when it mattered."
Mike Ferguson, Founder - Kelvin Lane Growth PartnersA boutique F&B exit advisory firm built around a single sector, a proprietary methodology, and complete alignment of interest with clients. Every engagement is in Food and Beverage. Every offer is fixed-fee and project-based. Founded by Mike Ferguson - ACCA qualified, CDI Global F&B M&A lead, ex-Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, William Grant & Sons.
The WARM methodology - Weighted Average Revenue Multiple - is the framework the firm uses to value F&B businesses by revenue stream quality rather than sector average. It is how serious acquirers think, and it is the reason our valuations are materially different from what a generalist produces.
We work with a small number of UK F&B founders at any one time. Deliberately. The quality of the work and depth of the relationship are not compatible with volume.
Three beliefs that keep F&B founders from getting the outcome they have earned.
Most founders know something is not right. They feel it in the gap between what they believe the business is worth and what they think buyers would actually pay. These are the three beliefs that create that gap - and why each one is wrong.
"My accountant's number is what the business is worth."
An accountant applies a sector multiple to reported EBITDA. A buyer underwrites normalised EBITDA - after adding back owner salary above market rate, personal expenses, and one-off costs. In a privately owned F&B business, the gap between reported and normalised EBITDA is routinely six figures. At seven times, that is a seven-figure difference in enterprise value. And that is before the multiple itself is adjusted for your specific profile.
The realityA deal-terms valuation and an accountant's estimate are not the same calculation. They rarely produce the same number. The difference is usually in your favour - if you know what to add back and how to present it.
"I will wait until I am ready to sell, then get a proper valuation."
The suppressors that reduce your multiple - customer concentration, founder dependency, margin compression, thin management layer - do not disappear in a six-month sale process. They get discovered in due diligence and used against you. A buyer who finds your top customer accounts for 40% of revenue does not pay you the same multiple they would have if it was 18%. They use it to chip the price or structure the deal around an earn-out.
The realityThe founders who achieve the best outcomes begin their preparation two to three years before going to market. The suppressors are addressable. But they take time to fix, and time is the one thing you cannot buy back once the process has started.
"The market is too uncertain to be thinking about exit right now."
UK F&B M&A in 2025 completed 133 transactions totalling £2.5 billion in deal value. 88% of those deals were completed by strategic buyers - trade acquirers and PE-backed consolidators who are actively building portfolios and under pressure to deploy capital. The market is not certain. It never is. But the appetite for quality, well-prepared F&B assets in the right categories has rarely been stronger.
The realityThe question is not whether the market is right. The question is whether your business is ready to take advantage of it when the window aligns with your own timing. Preparation is the thing you control.
Every client starts with The Picture. Everything else follows from it.
The Clarity Gap - not knowing your real number - is the root cause of every other problem. A founder who does not know their normalised EBITDA, their buyer universe, and their specific suppressors cannot make informed decisions about capital, timing, or preparation.
The Picture is the analysis that closes that gap. It is built on the same framework every serious acquirer applies - not a sector average, not an estimate, not a broker's enthusiasm. A written document the client owns and can use in any subsequent conversation with buyers, lenders, or investors.
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Normalised EBITDA The number a buyer will actually underwrite - with every adjustment shown and justified. Not the figure in your statutory accounts.
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Valuation range in deal terms Built on current UK F&B transaction data and the WARM methodology - weighted by your specific revenue mix, not a single sector average.
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Buyer universe map Named buyer categories. Who would buy your business, what they would pay, and what specifically they are looking for in a business with your profile.
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Value gap analysis The specific factors suppressing or enhancing your multiple - and what each one is worth in pounds of enterprise value.
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The Runway roadmap A sequenced plan from where the business is today to the outcome you are working toward. Not generic advice - the specific next steps for your business.
The Picture
A complete written exit roadmap delivered over four to six weeks. 20 to 30 pages. A document you own and can use in any subsequent conversation with buyers, lenders, or investors.
Start with the free valuation → Book a no-obligation callThe sequence of what follows is determined by what The Picture reveals. Whether that is fixing suppressors through The 3 Month Fix, maintaining momentum through The Value Partner, or going straight to a Capital Raise, Buy-Side acquisition, or managed Exit - every path starts from the same foundation.
Our fee structure ensures our interests are genuinely aligned with the client's outcome. We do not take on engagements where the value we can add is not clear - and we work with a deliberately small number of clients at any one time.
See all services →The founders who get the best outcomes start this process two to three years early.
The most common thing founders tell us when they first make contact is some version of "I am not ready yet." They are running the business. They have not had the conversation with their family. They are not sure the timing is right. They think the business needs another year or two.
All of those things may be true. None of them are reasons to wait before understanding your number.
"I know what my business is worth - I've been running it for 20 years."
Running a business and valuing it in deal terms are different disciplines. The factors a buyer assesses - normalised EBITDA, revenue mix, management depth, customer concentration, contract quality - are not visible from the inside without a specific analysis. Founders who have been building for 20 years are often the most surprised by both the number and the suppressors.
"I do not have time to prepare - I am running the business."
The preparation does not require the founder to step away from the business. The Picture is four to six weeks of analysis that runs alongside the business. The fixes it identifies are driven through the existing management team. The founder's job is to understand the findings and make decisions - not to become a full-time exit project manager.
"My business has too many issues to get a good price right now."
The issues are almost certainly addressable. Customer concentration, founder dependency, financial hygiene, management depth - these are not permanent features of a business. They are problems that respond to structured preparation over time. The question is not whether they can be fixed. It is whether they are fixed before a buyer finds them or after.
"I built this myself - I do not need someone else to tell me what it is worth."
Building a business and selling one require completely different knowledge sets. The founders who have been through a previous sale process know this. The ones who have not, discover it when a buyer's adviser starts adjusting their EBITDA figure and applying discounts to their multiple that nobody warned them about. The information advantage is significant and it belongs to whoever has seen more comparable transactions.
The window for quality F&B assets is open. Preparation is what determines whether you can use it.
The UK F&B M&A market is not waiting for perfect macroeconomic conditions. Strategic buyers are actively deploying capital. PE funds are sitting on record levels of dry powder. Interest rate reductions since late 2024 have improved acquisition financing economics. The market is active - but it is active for quality assets, and quality is defined by preparation.
The businesses achieving top-of-range multiples in the current market are not necessarily the largest or the fastest-growing. They are the ones where the suppressors have been addressed, the financial information is clean, and the story is coherent. That is what preparation produces.
"Mike showed us what buyers would actually pay - not what our accountant had guessed. The difference was significant. We went into the process properly informed for the first time."
"The best conversation we had in two years of thinking about exit. No slides, no script - just an honest view of where we stood and what we needed to fix before going to market."
Testimonials are illustrative of typical client feedback. Names and details changed for confidentiality.
Start with the free valuation. Everything else follows from knowing your number.
The F&B Business Valuation Calculator is built on the WARM methodology and live UK transaction data. It is specific to your business - not a generic multiple. It takes four minutes. And it tells you three things most founders have never been told clearly: what the business is worth, how ready it is, and what is holding the number back.
The F&B Business Valuation Calculator
No email required to start. You see the methodology working before we ask for anything. Email captured only when your result is ready - at the point of maximum usefulness, not before.
- Indicative valuation range using WARM methodology and live F&B sector multiples
- Revenue mix weighting - branded, manufacturing, packaging, resale weighted separately
- Deal readiness score out of 100 across 10 buyer assessment criteria
- Top 3 named value suppressors specific to your answers
- NAV floor applied for asset-heavy businesses where earnings alone understate value
- Opportunity signal based on your revenue profile and readiness score
- Email captured only at the result - not before you start
Questions founders usually ask
The calculator produces a deliberately wide indicative range - not a precise number. This is intentional. A precise number without seeing your accounts, customer contracts, and management team would be false precision. What the calculator does accurately is identify the key drivers and suppressors that determine where within that range your business sits. The precise number is what The Picture produces - built on your actual normalised EBITDA and current deal market data for comparable transactions.
No. Most of our most useful conversations happen two to four years before a founder is ready to go to market. The earlier you understand your number and your suppressors, the more time you have to address them - and addressing them is worth significantly more than anything that can be done in the six months before a process. The calculator and the call are useful at any stage of thinking about exit, capital, or succession.
We work with privately owned UK Food and Beverage businesses generating between £15m and £80m in annual turnover, typically with 50 to 200 employees. This is the lower mid-market - the segment where preparation has the greatest relative impact on outcome, and where most founders are not currently receiving advice of the quality the business deserves.
Completely. The information you provide in the calculator is used only to generate your result and is not shared with any third party. We do not contact you unless you book a call or request follow-up. Everything discussed on a call is held in complete confidence. We have no relationships with buyers, brokers, or intermediaries that create any conflict of interest.
That is exactly the right time to start. The founders who achieve the best outcomes from a sale process began their preparation two to three years before going to market - addressing customer concentration, reducing founder dependency, building management depth, and getting the financial information in order. If you are not ready to sell, the most valuable thing you can do is find out what is suppressing your number and start working on it. That is precisely what the calculator and The Picture are designed to tell you.
Know your number.
Close the gap.
Get out right.
Most F&B founders are sitting on a number they have never actually been given. The free valuation calculator takes four minutes and changes that. Start there.
Confidential · No obligation · Takes 4 minutes · Built for UK F&B founders only