GEA Group, Germany, acquired CMT S.p.A., an Italy-based supplier of single equipment and integrated production lines for pasta filata cheese (fresh mozzarella and pizza cheese).

GEA plans to integrate this business into its application center dairy within the newly created business area solutions.

“The purchase of CMT is another textbook example of our bolt-on M&A strategy to fill technological gaps by acquiring accretive specialist companies in order to enhance our offering of complete process solutions in attractive market applications like cheese processing in this particular case,” says Jürg Oleas, chief executive officer of GEA. “It is quite telling that several of CMT’s customers have also been GEA customers. CMT will enrich our scope of solutions know how, and we can give them strong support in taking this business to the next level. There are clear synergies in respect of globalizing the sales presence, of gaining access to new customers and of promoting future technology development.”