Houlihan Lokey Advises FoodLogiQ

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that The Riverside Company (Riverside) has invested in FoodLogiQ, LLC, as an add-on to its ESHA Research (ESHA) platform, a provider of SaaS-based nutritional analysis, labeling compliance, and product formulation software. The terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.

FoodLogiQ, founded in 2006, provides supply chain management software used by restaurants, food retail and grocery chains, food and beverage product manufacturers, wholesale food suppliers and distributors, and other customers. The company enables customers to streamline supply chain management processes, ensure supplier compliance with food safety standards, and optimize product traceability.

ESHA is trusted by food and beverage manufacturers, foodservice companies, health and wellness organizations, supplements manufacturers, and more to ensure regulatory compliance and more effectively manage the product formulation process. The company’s software enables customers to collect and store ingredient data, create regulatory-compliant nutrition facts labels, analyze the nutritional content of recipes, manage product formulations, calculate recipe yields and costs, produce ingredient certification statements, and validate dietary claims.

Loren Schlachet, Riverside Managing Partner, commented, “We are excited to work with the team to continue delivering the best technology and highest service to customers who are increasingly focused on digitizing the supply chain to improve food safety and transparency, while navigating increasing regulatory requirements, especially related to food traceability.”

ESHA is uniquely positioned to tie FoodLogiQ’s complementary supply chain management capabilities with ESHA’s industry-leading nutrition and ingredients database and software. This partnership and continued product development initiatives will enable the combined company to better solve new and existing problems for its customers, who rely on ESHA and FoodLogiQ to serve some of their most critical business needs every day.

“FoodLogiQ broadens the ESHA platform and expands the universe of potential product extensions and add-on acquisitions that will be attractive to the combined company,” said Riverside Senior Partner Brian Sauer. “We will continue to invest meaningfully in product innovation, sales and marketing and customer support, while closely evaluating complementary add-ons to strengthen the company.”

FoodLogiQ is the leading SaaS provider of traceability, food safety, and supply chain transparency solutions. FoodLogiQ Connect is the most comprehensive, data-driven software solution that enables supplier management, food safety compliance, quality incident management, recall management, and whole chain traceability—all built exclusively for the food industry.

ESHA, founded in 1981, offers a variety of nutritional analysis and label development solutions to ensure regulatory compliance. Its software programs and databases are used all over the world by food manufacturers, educational facilities, restaurants, healthcare facilities, and other industry institutions for nutrient analysis, labeling, product development, and more. In addition, ESHA offers software and regulatory compliance consulting and label-generation services.

Riverside is a global private equity firm focused on investing in growing businesses valued at up to $400 million. Since its founding in 1988, Riverside has made more than 870 investments. The firm’s international private equity and structured capital portfolios include more than 130 companies.

Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial advisor and assisted in marketing, structuring, and negotiating the transaction on behalf of FoodLogiQ and its shareholders. This transaction builds on Houlihan Lokey’s success and expertise in business services and industrial technologies transactions.