Aberdeenshire-headquartered catering firm Entier has been acquired by multi-billion-pound US company Aramark.
Westhill-based Entier was founded by chef Peter Bruce in 2008.
Its now been bought by food services giant Aramark, which had a turnover of £14 billion in 2024, for an undisclosed sum.
Entier employs nearly 700 people across offices in the UK, as well as Australia, Trinidad, Canada, Singapore and Saudi Arabia,
The firm reached a turnover of £76.8 million in 2023, according to its latest accounts filed at Companies House, with pre-tax profit hitting £2m.
Former chef grows Entier
Originally from St Combs, just outside of Fraserburgh, Peter started working at the village’s Tufted Duck hotel kitchen as a 15-year-old.
He was actually thinking about becoming a policeman but from that point his path was clear.
After 29 years as a chef, which included 11 years running the Scotland and north-east business of UK catering giant Compass, he decided it was time to strike out on his own.
He saw a “gap in the market for a catering business with a laser focus on quality” and decided to start by supplying the oil and gas industry – offshore and onshore.
Initially he set up financing from banks but this support was withdrawn as the 2008 financial crash took hold.
He pressed on, putting more of his savings into the venture. It quickly went from strength-to-strength and expanded internationally.
In 2016 the business added luxury catering with the acquisition of Perthshire Wild Thyme, which came with exclusive rights to catering events at Glamis Castle in Angus, Carlowie Castle near Edinburgh and the Glenturret Distillery in Crieff.
It’s also catered for events such as the Ryder Cup and the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
Speaking at the time Peter hailed the deal as a means to widen his firm’s market across Scotland and take a bigger slice of demand for large scale events across the whole of the UK.
Entier expansion
Since then the firm has continued to grow with an increasing turnover and today is Scotland’s largest independent catering company.
Accounts for the 12 months to September 30 2023 show a global workforce of 697 people, on average, up from 602 a year earlier.
In 2017 Entier secured a £6.5m investment from Business Growth Fund (BGF) to expand its overseas operations.
It was awarded a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2016 and serves 2.4 million meals a year.
According to Companies House documents, Aramark Limited is now the majority shareholding, with more than 75% of the shares.
What is Aramark?
Aramark was first founded in the 1930s and began as a vending machine company.
By the 1960s it was operating in 19 states with revenue of £29m.
Philadelphia-headquartered Aramark launched its offshore division in 1978.
It made its entry into the UK North Sea in 2013 when it w0n a five-year deal worth £33m ($41m) to cater offshore facilities for French firm Total, now called TotalEnergies.
Aramark recorded turnover of £14bn ($17.4bn) for 2024, an increase of 8% from previous year.
Entier and Aramark have both been contacted for comment.
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