Irish founded food and health software company Nutritics has bought Ten Kites, a UK-based menu publishing platform.

The Ten Kites software enables food businesses to publish personalised digital menus across web pages, mobile apps and digital displays.

The acquisition will enable Nutritics to include the Ten Kites solution as part of its overall offering to its customers.

It also allows Ten Kites to drive international expansion with access to new market segments across Europe, Middle East and Australia.

Stephen Nolan, MD of Nutritics, said: “This acquisition strengthens the Nutritics offering by enabling us to combine our food and health software solutions with the Ten Kites platform used by restaurants, pub groups and bars, ensuring that the menu information being provided to customers is accurate and detailed to allow them to make the choices they want to.”

Mr Nolan added that there is “huge growth” in demand for food businesses to provide information at the point-of-sale.

“Combined with that, the Covid-19 pandemic has increased the pace at which the food and hospitality sector has adopted digital platforms in order to safely operate by providing staff and consumers with easy access to menu information and ordering platforms,” he said.

The combined entity currently employs 50 staff and there are plans for further recruitment to support expansion, according to a statement from Nutritics.

The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Nutritics was founded in 2013 by brothers Damian and Ciarán O’Kelly after they spotted a gap in the market for a detailed and accessible database of food information for use by food businesses, nutrition and research experts.

Its software solutions are now used in over 100 countries by a wide range of food businesses, alongside health, sport and education professionals.

Nutritics Food clients include restaurant chain Leon and Starbucks.

Nutritics Health is used by the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), Public Health England and Manchester City Football Club, alongside over 90pc of all third level universities in Ireland and the UK.

Nutritics was advised on the acquisition by Focus Capital Partners and Burges Salmon UK. Ten Kites was advised by DWF UK and Appletree UK.