Gallo boosts the Ta-Tung Asian dishes brand with a 3 million investment plan

In 1980, Kav Ly founded the Asian food company Ta-Tung in Barcelona after exiling from her native country, Cambodia, following the Khmer Rouge's rise to power. With tenacity and a long-term vision, the entrepreneur managed to turn her small company of spring rolls and Yakisoba noodles into the sector leader, penetrating the refrigerated aisle of almost all supermarket chains. A year ago, the Gallo group, leader in the Spanish pasta market, announced the acquisition of Ta-Tung, which currently has a turnover of around 15 million euros and already employs 162 people.

This acquisition was closed a few months after the ProA Capital fund bought Pastas Gallo from the Espona family in October 2019 with the challenge of increasing the company's size and positioning it in new fast-growing market segments, such as refrigerated ready meals and ethnic products. In the oriental food category, Gallo had tried its luck ---but without much success--- with Soba, the instant noodle cups it launched in 2015 in alliance with the Japanese group Nissin Foods and with which it wanted to compete with the best-selling brand Yatekomo, owned by the Catalan group GBFoods.

According to Gallo, excluding sushi sales, Ta-Tung is the absolute leader in the Asian ready meals category in Spain. To maintain and revalidate this market position, the group led by Fernando Fernández has announced an investment of three million euros in the Ta-Tung plant in Sant Vicenç dels Horts, which will become "the focus of the innovation plan that the company plans to develop over the next two years."

Gallo assures that this investment is linked "to ambitious medium-term growth objectives" for the Asian food brand, which has begun to internationalize. Thus, Ta-Tung already exports its dishes to Portugal, France, and Italy. At the time of the acquisition, Ta-Tung had a workforce of 141 people, to which twelve Gallo employees were added this year who were affected by an industrial reorganization plan that affected the Granollers pasta plant. In addition to taking on this dozen workers, last June Ta-Tung hired nine more people, so its workforce now stands at 162 workers and is expected to continue growing as the investment plan and brand growth progress.

In April, ProaA Capital also announced a plan to reinforce Gallo's plant in Esparreguera, specialized in the production of gluten-free pasta and where pasta not made with wheat but with legumes such as chickpeas, peas, and lentils has now begun to be manufactured.

With a turnover of 200 million euros, Gallo leads the food pasta market in Spain, with a market share in value close to 35%. Its main factory is now located in El Carpio (Córdoba).