Hilton Food has made another portfolio expanding acquisition. Aiming to be the protein partner of choice, it has added smoked salmon to the range, with the agreed acquisition of Foppen. The acquisition price is €90m. Foppen is a Dutch based business (although it also manufactures in Greece) and is known to Hilton via Albert Heijn, one of Foppen’s key retail partners. However, another significant Foppen account is Costco in the USA, plus it has some sales in Asia, so this deal gives Hilton its first inroads into these two new geographic markets. Smoked salmon consumption is currently low in the USA (vs Europe) but growing rapidly. This deal comes hot on the heels of the acquisition of Fairfax Meadow (announced end October, purchase price £23.8m) but also at a time when net debt is higher than typical for HFG, following an expansion of its asset base in Australia/New Zealand. As a result, the announced equity placing today of £75m gross (at 1140p/share) will help fund the two deals and will keep leverage below the 2x threshold. Both deals bring further opportunities for cross-selling. Following Foppen, it can now offer smoked salmon products to its existing customer base, but also look to build on the Costco relationship in the US. Fairfax Meadow offers channel expansion opportunities for the Group’s wider protein range as it operates within the Foodservice sector. We had already reflected the Fairfax Meadow deal in our forecasts, but Foppen generates another small upgrade to FY22E estimates. We add just under £7m to FY22E PBT (prev £74m) but after accounting for the increased equity, the new EPS are 67.7p (2% up on pre 66.5p). Across, these two deals the earning accretion is 4-5%. Maintain Buy.