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Fast transaction speed in food and beverage space has recently attracted attention from Brynwood partners.
Private funds were one of the most active buyers and sellers in food and beverage spaces this year. that SUNNYD MAKER HARVEST HILL BEVERAGE COMPANY has been sold 1 month after about $ 1.5 billion in May The acquisition of Chef Boyardee in the Conagra brand For $ 600 million. Brynwood’s CEO Henk Hartong said that Food Dive could have more transactions on the horizon.
Through the history of 41 years, the company has pioneered a prominent niche market for food and drinks with a priority to popular brands, including Pillsbury, Hungry Jack, Martha White and Funfetti.
Brynwood’s strategy is to find a way to make sales of sales through new marketing and product innovation by identifying brands that are no longer prioritized by large food manufacturers.
For example, SUNNY D sales have been branded for nine years. The brand owned the brand by expanding the availability of small format size to capture consumers on the go. In addition, the launch of the RTD cocktail has been extended with new categories such as alcohol.
HARTONG has recently sat with Food Dive about what Brynwood is looking for in the goal of acquisition, how to revitalize the purchased brand and the current trading market.
This interview was edited for simplicity and clarity.
Food diving: Why do you attract you to Boyardee chefs and how do you get the extensive strategy of Brynwood Partners?
Henk Hartong: At the basis of all the new opportunities we see, we are trying to identify the independent or corporate development opportunities that can accelerate performance by combining business or brands and our operating and investment technology.
This strategy tends to be well suited to non -core brands of large companies. Large corporations can’t do everything, so you need to choose and select a place.
Sometimes, brands with tremendous amounts of capital and potential are deeper in larger organizations that can be a very good strategic reason. But it provides an opportunity for someone like us to apply these modifications to this inherent situation and bring life, innovation and energy to a business that waits for detailed details.
What are you looking for about a brand that you are interested in?
We are sold to the public, not classes. And if you buy some of these alcoholic products, many people in the investment community consider these brands or businesses that don’t fit your personal lifestyle, but it is very important for most Americans. And I think it gives us an advantage.
In the case of Sunny D, people say, ‘Henk, what are you doing?’ It was 12 years ago. I definitely did not believe what they thought. I thought we could take an amazing capital and a brand of alcoholic beverages, and that it could be revitalized with everything we didn’t get.
When we got it, when you asked someone in 2015, “Hey, I just bought Sunny D. All our focus should be” I used to not start “, today, today, when they ask,“ Oh, the brand is so cool. All new products are great. ”We removed” before. “
If you are now talking to someone about Chef Boyardee, your first response is usually, “I ate it when I was young. I ate it when I was in college.” Whatever a certain correlation with the brand is a reflection of past experiences. Therefore, there are all stock fragrances with a box in the non -core operating strategy applied by the former owner. It goes well with what we can do as a business.
The next part of the process is that we are focusing on how we create different opportunities for experienced consumers to experience in the traditional canned pasta, which is the lion sharing of the business that exists today, and the cups that can be moved to microphones and the logical adjacent stores.
Accepting and strengthening these performances is very important to our success. The great way of growth is to take the equity of Chef Boyardee and to introduce the brand to the consumer, so if we ask them, we will like it for years, “Oh, I like your new product.
Brynwood explains what to do as a brand as a brand that has already been acquired before the acquisition. What is the approach to Chef Boyardee?
One thing that can be universally from customers is how important the chef Boyardee is for customers. This is because it is a high -nutritional product with high nutritious and rich quality products and offers main stay meals at a very low price. It plays an important role when many families are having difficulty finding ways to achieve their goals.
So we knew it was important to our customers. What we are working now is how we provide innovation.
We did not disappear because Conagra did not provide resources to the marketing team to explore the opportunity, whether it was a huge category that could be played by the mayor’s area, shelf -stable tray or dry box meals or equality of chefs. It will focus on key products and leave it.
We thought we could take the brand and performed some prototypes and began to do R & D work well before closing.
How can you see the opportunity in the market? Do you have more potential acquisitions when consumers reduce spending and try to improve their operations?
There are two ways to sell corporate sales. First, it is a change of strategy or a corner office regardless of most economic cycles. A new person came in and said, “We have to look at this. We want to improve our strategy, and today’s business is not important today.” And often leads to a portfolio reconstruction.
Another situation is when you enter a difficult market for sales and market share, and we are in the middle. Therefore, in the last quarter’s earnings report, many people are growing negative comps or lower growth than expected. And when you are in the public market and do not achieve growth, you tend to find a way to get it.
One way to reclaim it is to accelerate the growth of the core business. Another way is to sell things that do not grow or decrease faster than others in the portfolio. It also tends to create opportunities. In this market, we will see many people who want to shed non -growth assets in this market.
