Veggiecraft Farms Sold

Dip and salad dressing brand Litehouse Foods is ready to expand beyond the produce section after announcing today that it had completed the acquisition of pasta alternative company Veggiecraft Farms in July. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Oliver Bogner, founder and former CEO of Veggiecraft, said the brand sold for a “respectable” price.

Since its 2019 debut, Veggiecraft has launched vegetable enhanced pastas, rice alternatives and microwaveable pasta cups. The line, which was created by Bogner’s brand incubation firm Brandable, is sold in approximately 20,000 doors, in retailers including Walmart, Whole Foods, Target, Wegmans, Meijer Kroger, Albertsons and Sprouts.

Veggiecraft’s pastas and rice alternatives are produced in Italy and use cauliflower flour, lentil flour and pea flour for added nutritional benefits. Veggiecraft’s rice alternative is shelf stable and more closely resembles a grain of rice, in contrast to its cauliflower rice, which is typically sold out of the frozen food set and is simply finely chopped cauliflower. The product gives the brand a foothold in the emerging shelf-stable rice alternative category, which includes products from Banza and RightRice.

Litehouse has other aspirations beyond refrigerated dips and dressings. The company entered the spice aisle through the launch of Green Garden freeze dried herbs last year, and also acquired shelf-stable sauce and condiment brands Sky Valley and Organicville. It’s previous attempt to diversify into the beverage set did not fare as well, with last year’s line of Greek Yogurt Smoothies no longer listed on the Litehouse website.

Bogner, who departed as CEO prior to the sale but continued to serve on the company’s board of directors, said the pairing of the two companies would allow Veggiecraft to fulfill its mission of offering healthier plant-based alternatives at a reasonable price point.

“Litehouse is passionate about scaling the plant based brand across more categories,” Bogner said. “[They sell] their products into every grocery store in America, and have a big food service business as well.”

Litehouse acquired Veggiecraft from Brandable, which created and incubated brands largely for Target and Walmart. Its current status is unclear: Bogner departed Brandable as CEO in late 2019 and Former Tesco COO John Burry became president in February.

Brandable portfolio brand Ready to Thrive, a line of frozen smoothie cups and vegetable blends, is no longer operational, while brands Made for Earth, Craft City, Good Guy Wellness and Good Vibes do not currently appear to have products for sale and have gone dormant on their respective social media accounts.

Brandable did not return requests for comment.