Bolton Group

The company began in Milan in 1949 under Joseph Nissim [3]. Its move into food came early: in 1960 it acquired ICIS, the canned-meat maker behind Manzotin, a business later renamed Trinity Alimentari that launched the Rio Mare canned-tuna brand, which became the group's flagship [3].

From the 1990s onward Bolton Group broadened well beyond food. It moved into personal care and cosmetics through a series of Italian acquisitions, added adhesives with the German and international brands UHU and Bostik, and expanded its seafood business with French and American purchases. By 2024 the group described itself as a multinational spanning five sectors, with roughly 60 brands and 60 representative offices worldwide.

Within beauty and personal care, Bolton Group owns several long-established Italian names. Its personal-care line-up includes Borotalco, the talc and body-care brand; Neutro Roberts, known for soaps and deodorants; Acqua alle Rose, a rosewater-based skincare line; and Omia, a natural personal-care range [3]. In cosmetics, the group owns Collistar, one of Italy's better-known makeup and skincare brands.

Many of these sit under Manetti & Roberts, the Italian personal-care company Bolton acquired in 1992 [3]. The wider personal-care and cosmetics portfolio listed by the group also includes names such as Bilboa, Chilly, Sanogyl, Cavailles and Botot, alongside its food, home-care and adhesive divisions. Outside beauty, the group's best-known brands are Rio Mare and Saupiquet in seafood, Simmenthal in canned meat, and UHU and Bostik in adhesives [3].

Bolton Group has grown largely through acquisition, buying established brands across each of its sectors rather than concentrating on a single category.

In beauty and personal care, the group acquired Manetti & Roberts in 1992, bringing in personal-care brands, and bought the cosmetics brand Collistar in 1993 [3]. In 2019 it added Omia Laboratories through Manetti & Roberts, extending its natural personal-care range [3].

Its other divisions grew in parallel. Bolton entered adhesives by acquiring UHU in 1994 and the Bostik brand in 2006 [3]. In seafood it bought the French canned-fish brand Saupiquet in 1999, purchased the canned-meat brand Simmenthal from Kraft for about EUR100 million in 2012, took full control of the US tuna group Tri Marine in 2019, and acquired Wild Planet Foods, a US producer of sustainable canned fish, in 2021 [3]. Most recently, in 2025, the group acquired Repair Care, a Dutch wood-repair and maintenance company, expanding its adhesives division [3].

Bolton Group is privately held and controlled by the founding Nissim family; it is not listed on a stock exchange [1][3]. The founder's daughter, Marina Nissim, leads the group. Because the company remains family-owned, it does not publish the detailed shareholder disclosures required of listed firms, and the ownership structure below that family control is not publicly itemised.