Brynwood Advances Carveout Strategy with Acquisition of Marie’s
Venture firm Brynwood Partners announced today it has entered into an agreement to acquire the Marie’s salad dressing brand and Dean’s Dip businesses from Ventura Foods, LLC, as well as the Thornton, Illinois facility where the products are manufactured. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“Dean’s and Marie’s are extraordinary brands, and we are delighted to lead those brands into their next phase of growth and expansion,” said Brynwood Partners CEO and chairman Henk Hartong III in a press release.
The two brands will operate under newly formed Chicago-based West Madison Foods, a vehicle Brynwood established to run and own both brands. While the Illinois plant, which employs approximately 84 full-time employees, will continue supporting the business following the acquisition, a press release did not concretely detail any transitions with back office employees.
Established in 1959, Marie’s produces a wide range of salad dressings, dips and spreads, including a plant-based line of dressings that launched in 2021. Ventura Foods purchased the brand from the Deans Food Company in 2005 in a $198 million transaction that also included the Dean’s dip business, the manufacturing facility in Thornton and a long-term license agreement permitting Ventura to use the Dean’s trademark on dips, as reported by Prepared Foods.
Ventura, a joint venture between agribusiness CHS, Inc. and global trading and investment company Mitsui & Co, was itself formed in 1996 as a result of a merger between Wilsey Foods and Holsum Foods. The company offers an array of unbranded ingredients for food service providers and creates branded products to sell to restaurants and offers assistance in developing private label products.
The acquisition of West Madison Foods marks the third corporate carveout for Brynwood in the last seven months. In March, the firm acquired Uno Foods under its Great Kitchen Foods Company, a U.S. manufacturer of private label take-and-bake pizzas and flatbreads. Late last year Brynwood baking platform Hometown Food Company also acquired pancake and waffle mix brand Birch Benders, adding to its portfolio of Pillsbury Baking Co., Funfetti, Hungry Jack, Arrowhead Mills, White Lily, Jim Dandy, Martha White, and De Wafelbakkers.
West Madison Foods increases the firm’s manufacturing network to 17 facilities, approximately 4,700 employees and more than $2.6 billion in annual sales.
The news comes just several weeks after salad dressing brand Brianna’s announced the acquisition of cheese snack maker John Wm. Macy’s by its parent company Del Sol Foods for an undisclosed sum. Brianna’s and John Wm. Macy’s will both continue to manufacture products at their existing facilities in Brenham, Texas and Elmwood Park, New Jersey, respectively.
In 2022, the salad dressing category saw category-consistent (+2%) growth. According to a recent report by market researcher Mordor Intelligence, the category is projected to grow at a CAGR of 5.47% between 2023 and 2028, reaching a valuation of $98,542 million.
