American private equity firm Carlyle Group is understood to have registered interest in taking a stake in mail order food company Graze.

Carlyle Group is lining up a £50m bid for a controlling stake in the snacks-by-post firm which has sales of £20m a year.

Graze is led by Lovefilm co-founder Graham Bosher, who owns around a third of the business, sold the DVD rental business for £200m to Amazon last year, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Graze was set up in west London in 2008 and now has 100,000 customers who receive regular mailings of the health food snack boxes.

Bosher founded the firm with £1.3m of investment from colleagues at Lovefilm and Graze now has backing from Octopus Investments and fellow Lovefilm founder William Reeve among others.