Food, Beverage & Tobacco Wholesale: business succession in the UK

Name: Food, Beverage & Tobacco Wholesale business succession in the UK
Creator: ExitRadar
License: https://www.exitradar.co.uk/terms

4,637 UK food, beverage & tobacco wholesale companies (31.2%) have a director aged 60 or over.

1.2 points below the all-trades average of 32.4%.

Companies measured14,841

Director aged 60+4,637

Exposure rate31.2%

Companies House register·Measured base 3,631,842·Data as at 11 October 2026·Full methodology

14,841

Companies measured

4,637

With a director 60+

1,681

With a director 70+

31.2%

Exposure rate

Of the 4,637 with a director over 60, 397 score 50 or higher on business quality. That figure is an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Food, Beverage & Tobacco Wholesale by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
South West	811	347	42.8%
East of England	1,361	541	39.8%
Wales	335	133	39.7%
Northern Ireland	326	127	39%
Scotland	873	334	38.3%
South East	1,621	613	37.8%
East Midlands	686	238	34.7%
Yorkshire & The Humber	836	273	32.7%
North West	1,391	437	31.4%
North East	254	77	30.3%
West Midlands	1,107	333	30.1%
London	5,232	1,181	22.6%

Combinations with fewer than 250 measured companies are not listed separately. They are still counted in every total on this page.

Next step

This page counts director ages across the whole register. If you are looking to buy rather than to research, our Wholesale & Distribution pages go further: we score each company on business quality and exit timing, and shortlist the ones worth approaching.

See UK Wholesale & Distribution →

Part of the UK Business Succession Index.

Cite this page

These figures are free to quote and reproduce, including in commercial work, with attribution to ExitRadar and a link to this page.

ExitRadar, "Food, Beverage & Tobacco Wholesale: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 11 October 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/wholesale-food/

Need a cut that is not published here, such as a different trade grouping, a finer geography or the underlying distribution? Get in touch and we will usually provide it. Methodology.

Method. Figures cover the 3,631,842 active UK companies where Companies House records an age bracket for at least one serving director (94.0% of the 3,863,328 companies on the active register). A company counts as succession-exposed when its oldest serving director is 60 or over. We do not use the board average, which would hide a 70-year-old founder sitting alongside younger co-directors. The business-quality figure covers only the subset our model assesses; see the methodology for why that is far smaller than the number with filed accounts. Data as at 11 October 2026; updated quarterly, next update January 2027. Full methodology.