Kerry has acquired three businesses in the US for $735m (€642m), which will significantly strengthen its taste and savoury flavours businesses. The three businesses – Red Arrow Products, Island Oasis and Biothera Inc’s Wellmune – had annual revenues of $301m (€264m) last year and earnings of US$59m (€52m). Kerry, with revenues of €5.8bn, is to finance the acquisitions from existing lines of credit.

Stan McCarthy, Kerry Group chief executive, said the acquisitions will bring a number of important innovative technology platforms to the group.

Red Arrow manufactures natural smoke and grill flavours for meat and is headquartered in Wisconsin. Island Oasis serves the restaurant and hospitality segments of the US market with its natural cocktail mixes. Its business also includes frozen fruit purées, coffee blends and performance nutrition beverages.

Biothera Inc’s Wellmune produces and markets natural food, beverage and supplement ingredients which strengthen the immune system. This will broaden Kerry’s functional nutritional ingredients portfolio.

The deal means that Kerry Group has invested almost €900m this year on acquisitions. It adds to the recent acquisition of Insight beverages, Wynnstarr Flavors and KFI Savoury, a US-based savoury business of Kraft Food Ingredients. In January, it acquired Rollover, a hot-to-go offering which took Kerry into the hospitality sector for the first time. It also acquired Baltimore Spices, a meat flavourings and seasoning business earlier in the year, and PST, a Turkey-based branded foodservice provider to the bakery and confectionary sectors.

Earlier in the year, Kerry sold its Australian bakery ingredients business, Pinnacle, and its direct-to-store business in the UK for €151m.