Ambienta invests in GFF, an Italian specialist in natural flavours for the food & beverage sector

• GFF develops natural flavour solutions tailored to small and mid-sized food & beverage customers.
• GFF accelerates the transition from synthetic to natural flavours, operating in a sector Ambienta knows extremely well.
• The deal marks the third investment for Ambienta Small Cap underscoring strong deployment momentum.

Milan/London/Paris/Munich/Stockholm, 24 June 2026 - Ambienta SGR S.p.A. ("Ambienta"), one of Europe’s largest asset managers exclusively focused on environmental sustainability, is pleased to announce the investment in GFF S.r.l. (“GFF”), a fast-growing Italian developer and producer of natural flavours for the food and beverage industry. Enrico Giotti, GFF’s founder and CEO, together with the company’s key managers, will reinvest alongside Ambienta and continue to lead the next phase of growth. 

Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Barberino Tavarnelle (Florence, Italy) GFF serves more than 250 small and medium-sized food & beverage producers with custom-developed flavours, extracts and essential oils for sweet, savoury, beverage and nutraceutical applications. Leveraging on more than 2,000 formulations, and strong co-development capabilities, GFF operates an integrated 5,000sqm production facility equipped with advanced spray-drying, powder-blending, liquid-blending, extraction and reaction flavours technologies. This enables the company to efficiently serve both small and large production runs with short lead times, supporting a diversified customer base across Italy and international markets, which represented approximately 20% of 2025 revenue. The rapid development of GFF, underpinned by double digit organic growth, builds on decades of market experience from Enrico Giotti and his team, who previously developed Enrico Giotti SpA into one of Italy’s largest independent flavor houses.

The European food flavours market is valued at approximately €2.3 billion and benefits from resilient long-term growth driven by stable food consumption trends and population growth. Within the sector, demand is increasingly shifting toward healthier products made with natural ingredients, supporting above-market growth for natural flavours compared with synthetic alternatives. Ambienta has closely monitored the sector for more than a decade, developing deep industry expertise through dedicated research and prior investments in the space.

GFF represents a Pollution Control investment under Ambienta’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) framework. Food quality, ingredient transparency and clean-label reformulation are becoming strategic priorities for food manufacturers, consumers and regulators. By replacing synthetic flavourings with natural alternatives, GFF contributes to the adoption of more sustainable ingredient solutions, reducing the use of synthetic molecules and the environmental impacts linked to their manufacture and release.

Building on GFF’s unique positioning, Ambienta will support the company in its evolution as an environmental sustainability champion, bringing deep expertise in partnering with family-owned businesses to accelerate growth, geographic expansion, new business segment development and operational optimisation, while pursuing strategic M&A opportunities to accelerate growth and value creation in a highly fragmented market.

Giacomo Forti, Partner at Ambienta, commented: “GFF is a rare opportunity to back an exceptional entrepreneur and a management team with an outstanding track-record. Our ambition is for GFF to become one of the leading mid-sized players in the Italian flavour market, delivering quality of service and flexibility to clients through a wide portfolio of solutions and strong innovation capabilities. We are proud to partner with Enrico to develop an industrial flavour hub combining organic expansion, targeted M&A and continued investment in innovation and manufacturing capabilities.”

Enrico Giotti, founder and CEO of GFF, added: “GFF was created with the ambition of bringing together technical excellence, speed and close-knit customer collaboration in the flavours industry. Since our founding, we have built a company rooted in quality, service and deep industry know-how, supported by a team that has worked together for many years. In Ambienta we have found a partner with strong knowledge of our sector, a clear industrial approach and the resources to help us accelerate growth. Together, we will continue to invest in people, products and production capabilities, while preserving the attention and close relationship with our customers that have made GFF successful.”

About Ambienta

Ambienta is a European investment manager, founded in 2007, pioneering sustainable investing in environmental champions across private equity, public markets, and private credit. With offices in Milan, London, Paris, Munich and Stockholm Ambienta manages over €4bn in assets and is backed by a global and growing investor base. The firm invests in companies driven by environmental megatrends and whose products or services improve Resource Efficiency or Pollution Control. Its science-driven approach identifies environmental champions of the real economy – businesses that deliver strong financial returns while generating measurable positive environmental impact.

An industry pioneer, Ambienta was one of the first UN PRI signatories in 2012 and attained B-Corp status in 2019. In 2020, Ambienta became IIGCC member and in 2023 committed to the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi). www.ambientasgr.com

Media Enquiries

ambienta@kekstcnc.com