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

4,373 UK food, beverage & tobacco wholesale companies — 31.3% — have a director aged 60 or over.

1.2 points below the all-trades average of 32.5%.

Companies measured13,980

Director aged 60+4,373

Exposure rate31.3%

Companies House register·Measured base 3,475,770·Data as at 13 August 2026·Full methodology

13,980

Companies measured

4,373

With a director 60+

1,584

With a director 70+

31.3%

Exposure rate

Of the 4,373 with a director over 60, 353 score 50 or higher on business quality — 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	792	346	43.7%
Wales	364	153	42%
East of England	1,013	408	40.3%
South East	1,408	551	39.1%
Northern Ireland	303	115	38%
Scotland	825	313	37.9%
North East	250	83	33.2%
North West	1,343	437	32.5%
Yorkshire & The Humber	794	257	32.4%
East Midlands	541	171	31.6%
West Midlands	991	282	28.5%
London	5,348	1,254	23.4%

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, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/wholesale-food/

Need a cut that is not published here — 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 3,475,770 active UK companies where Companies House records an age bracket for at least one serving director — 93.8% of the 3,706,712 companies on the active register. A company counts as succession-exposed when its oldest serving director is 60 or over — not 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 13 August 2026; updated quarterly, next update October 2026. Full methodology.