Hitting The Ground Running: Ideagen Acquires Food Safety Firm Qadex

Hitting The Ground Running: Ideagen Acquires Food Safety Firm Qadex

On January 20th 2023, Ideagen, a quality, risk and collaboration software provider, announced its first acquisition of the year in food safety firm Qadex for an undisclosed value. This Leicestershire-based software provider employs over 50 professionals and supports over 16,000 customers with supply chain mapping for food safety. Following their purchase of ProcessMAP last October, the now 1,350-employee firm continues its evolution as an end-to-end integrated risk and supply chain solution. The combined venture, Ideagen Qadex, will connect various aspects of food safety from production, storage, transport and processing.

Ideagen’s offering is rooted in quality management, however since their take-private deal for £1.05bn ($1.15bn)  by Hg Capital in July 2022, the firm has widened its portfolio to provide comprehensive, integrated risk management through strategic partnerships and acquisitions. This is not the organization’s first foray into the fast-moving consumer goods market, with existing customers from known household brands such as Diageo and Greggs using their platform for quality and safety. Through Ideagen Qadex, customers gain transparency on the entire supply chain lifecycle of food product ingredients.

Verdantix sees enterprise-sized firms from EHS-adjacent software areas, like Ideagen, begin to enter the EHS market through strategic partnerships and acquisitions. Our recent EHS M&A report highlights five adjacent systems that share close synergies with EHS software: quality management; ESG and sustainability; operational risk; governance, risk and compliance (GRC); and product stewardship. In the market, we have observed a number of solutions that combine EHS with one or more of these five other areas through an M&A process. For example, European EHS software provider EcoOnline has announced its acquisition of Alcumus’s software division, a GRC and contractor-management-focused platform provider.

We’re currently seeing a continued period of PE interest in the EHS market. In 2022, Verdantix identified that seven out of 23 separate EHS transactions – spanning acquisitions, investments and asset sales – resulted from PE firms acquiring or injecting capital into EHS software. For example, earlier this month, Symphony Technology Group (STG), a private equity organization with a portfolio of 22 software firms, acquired cloud risk management and compliance software provider SAI360. Covered in our blog, this decision places SAI360 in a position to apply its risk management and compliance capabilities to ESG risk management solutions.

For deeper insights into EHS software M&As, see Market Insight: Top Five EHS Software Market Mergers And Acquisitions In 2022. Visit our research page here to learn more about key market trends in the EHS space.