Bright Food gets 2nd Aussie firm

The recently acquired company owns one of West Australia's best-known dairy brands and has secured broad distribution of its products, such as yogurts and cheeses, through local supermarkets and specialty food stores, Pan added.

The move will help enrich Manassen's product line.

The State-backed Bright Food plans to expand its major business areas - dairy products, wines, sugar and branded food products - overseas.

Prioritizing targets in Australia, New Zealand and Europe, Bright Food has taken bites of foreign assets to boost overseas sales.

Apart from Manassen, it bought French wine merchant Diva Bordeaux and British cerealmaker Weetabix, and it's also in talks with Tnuva Food Industries Ltd, Israel's biggest food manufacturer and distributor.

The Shanghai-based firm is contemplating listing some of its foreign assets.

Bright Food said it's also mapping out an aggressive plan to place its products in new channels.

"We're creating a genuine global network by allowing, for instance, British customers to access Mundella's cheese, or Australian consumers to have a taste of French wine," Pan said.

Bright Food holds a 5.7 percent share of China's 174 billion yuan ($28.54 billion) dairy market, ranking fourth in the domestic market, according to Euromonitor International.

It has a market share of 1.4 percent in terms of packaged foods and 1.6 percent in the ice cream market, said the London-based firm.

In 2013, Chinese companies launched overseas M&A deals worth about $56.2 billion, and overall M&A activity will likely stay buoyant in 2014, said a Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu report.