Given its usual three-year gap between big deals, it's time for Kerry to be looking for another big one to build on the DCA and Dalgety deals in the past six years which have pushed Kerry to a pre-eminent position in the food ingredients business.

There is lots of talk in recent weeks linking Kerry with Bush Boake Allen (BBA), the US manufacturer of flavourings and fragrances, which controlling shareholder International Paper is likely to sell. So far, all that is happening is that Credit Suisse First Boston is looking at the options for (BBA), but the view in the industry is that there is no logic in a group like International Paper owning a flavours and fragrances outfit like BBA so a disposal is likely.

The big question is whether International Paper will sell it as a single unit - it's current valued at just under £700 million (€888.82 million) - or whether the business would be split between the flavourings and fragrances prior to a sale. A company like Kerry would undoubtedly be interested in BBA's flavourings business, but the fragrances side of the business doesn't exactly fit into Kerry's core food ingredients operations.

While Kerry would probably prefer to buy just the flavourings side, industry sources believe the company will be sold as a unit, with the purchaser left to sell off the bits he does not want. Such an approach would not be new to Kerry, as it sold off Dalgety's flour-milling business shortly after buying the British group . . . at a huge profit.

There is, however, likely to be strong interest in BBA, and Kerry will face competition from the likes of International Flavourings and Fragrances or Givaudan. BBA with sales of almost $500 million is the seventh biggest producers of raw materials for perfumes and aromas, but is also a big producer of enzymes for milk products, fruit juice additives and vanilla extracts, operations that would fit Kerry's North American ingredients business like a glove.

It'll all come down to price, but if there is strong competition BBA may be bid up to a level where Kerry would have to look to part-finance such a deal with a sizeable chunk of equity. Given that BBA is a US business, and with so much of Kerry's operations US-based, Denis Brosnan may be able to raise money from US investors and add a New York listing to the existing Dublin and London listings.