Brazilian meat giant JBS is taking over Dutch meat replacement company Vivera for €341m. The Financieele Dagblad reported in February that the company was up for sale.

Vivera has been making vegetarian burgers, sausages and mince since 1990 and its products are now sold in 25 European countries. The company has a workforce of 400.

JBS is one of the biggest meat companies in the world with 245,000 workers worldwide, of whom 145,000 are in Brazil.

The company said it was buying Vivera because it expects strong global growth in meat replacement products. The company will remain an independent operation within JBS and keep its current management.

Vivera booked turnover of €85m last year and aims to triple this within the next five years as the trend towards eating less meat continues. The market for meat replacement products has doubled over the past three years.

In 2018, Unilever bought Dutch meat replacement maker De Vegertarische Slager for an estimated €30m. US fake meat maker Beyond Meat opened a production plant in the Netherlands in 2019 and Britain’s Meatless Farm last year also opened a Dutch operation.