Farmwise Sells to Green Giant Producer
Facing stiff competition from major CPG companies, frozen food brand Farmwise is selling to one of its top competitors. The Massachusetts-based company announced yesterday that it has been purchased by B&G Foods — who also owns the Green Giant line of vegetable-based products.
Founders Dave and Christina Peters will remain with the company through its transition to B&G ownership before evaluating their next steps with the company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 2014, Farmwise gained notoriety in the market for offering shoppers better-for-you frozen french fries, tater tots and onion rings, blending the classic potato and onion bases with other vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower. In 2018, the company closed a $4.5 million financing round led by Cleveland Avenue LLC, the venture capital firm founded by Don Thompson, the former president and CEO of McDonald’s Corporation.
However, while there was plenty of white space when the brand initially hit the marketplace, its products were quickly duplicated by larger players, Dave Peters told NOSH.
“Year after year as we were building the business, big CPG guys stepped into space,” Peters said. “I didn’t expect all the three big CPG brands to step in [to the category] in such a rapid time…It was such a massive mainstream idea that it was pretty logical that the mainstream CPG guys would follow.”
Peters told NOSH the brand faced competition from the largest frozen vegetable and potato players, including Bird’s Eye, McCain and Green Giant which all launched their own veggie-based fries and tots. To date, Farmwise’s website even features a page comparing its own nutritional facts to those of Green Giant and Birds Eye, calling their own products “the better choice for your family.
But while Farmwise saw growth in the natural channel where the larger frozen players have less share, it struggled in conventional. In 2019 the company tried to diversify its offerings into new categories by launching veggie-enhanced, better-for-you mozzarella sticks, chicken nuggets and potato skins. Although the brand is available in about 5,000 stores nationwide, the bulk of sales come from the veggie fries, tots and rings. The pickup of newer launches. Peters said, has been slightly slower given the limited amount of shelf space in frozen.
“The frozen veg and potato set there are monsters that have [a large] share of the shelf. Ore Ida has a 50 share. Birds Eye and Green Giant between them have a 75 share in the vegetable set. And some of them also do private label products,” Peters said. “There’s really not a lot of incremental room in those sets, so squeezing innovation in is pretty challenging.”
The choice, Peters said, was to find a partner that could help provide muscle and marketing power on the shelf, with Green Giant fitting the bill. Moving forward, B&G said in a release, the Farmwise brand will continue to live on in the natural channel while other items Farmwise has developed will become “new, innovative product offerings for our Green Giant brand.” In particular, Farmwise could provide Green Giant with products (and a brand) that targets children and families — while the brand does have similar offerings, none sport Farmwise’s kid-friendly packaging.Green Giant itself has undergone a revitalization after being acquired by B&G in 2015. While the brand still offers its classic offerings of canned and frozen vegetables, B&G has moved the brand away from offering only commodity products, launching more value added options of vegetable enhanced meals, sides and snacks. Peters told NOSH given this track record of innovation with frozen vegetables, B&G was a natural fit to take the brand to the next level.
“We’re pretty excited about the future,” he said, “and I know B&G is too.”
