Inside the Justin’s Deal: Predicting Its Future Under Forward Consumer Partners

Nut butter and confection company Justin’s will soon return to private ownership, a move that incoming CEO Peter Burns – who previously served as CEO from 2014 to 2016 – believes will “unlock the true potential of the brand.”

On Tuesday, private equity firm Forward Consumer Partners announced that it purchased a 51% stake in Justin’s from Hormel, with the CPG giant retaining the remaining 49%. Forward declined to disclose the financial terms of the transaction.

Founded in 2004 by entrepreneur Justin Gold, Justin’s was purchased by Hormel in 2016 for approximately $286 million to grow its portfolio of protein-rich products. Under Hormel’s ownership, the brand expanded its offerings to include a full range of almond and peanut butters, as well as new varieties of peanut butter cups and almond butter cups.

“Hormel has elevated the brand since we sold it in 2016, launching extensions and confections. Essentially, [this transaction with Forward] is about unlocking the true potential of the brand and giving it focus and priority,” Burns told Nosh. “If we can do that in association with our partnership with Hormel, that’ll be great. There are a lot of things we can learn and leverage from our relationship.”

“Justin’s is a beautiful brand with a remarkably strong latent brand equity. It was a very small brand within a much bigger portfolio at Hormel, and so over the course of the roughly 10 years that Hormel owned it, resources inevitably were diverted to other parts of that portfolio and Justin’s didn’t get the focus it can and will under private ownership,” echoed Brandon Staub, partner at Forward Consumer Partners.

A Nut Butter Carve-Out

Once the transaction closes (expected in December), the biggest near-term priority is “executing a flawless carve-out from Hormel,” according to Staub. Justin’s is currently “entirely intertwined” within the broader Hormel infrastructure, including IT systems, financial reporting and supply chains.

“We’ve surrounded ourselves with excellent third-party service providers who are going to be our arms and legs, helping us execute [the carveout] alongside the [Forward] management team,” said Staub. “It’s going to be hard work and take some time. We have set relatively tempered expectations together with the management team as to the financial performance and step change we’ll see in 2026.”

Burns shared a similar sentiment, stating, “The first thing that we have to do is stand up Justin’s as an independent company. Getting the knowledge transfer, getting our hands on the brand and building our own infrastructure will take time. Once we have our feet on the ground, that’s the point when we start to build the innovation platform.”

Part of that knowledge transfer will come from another resource from Justin’s early days, or more aptly put, the source: Justin Gold.

Gold will be returning to the brand while also continuing to serve as chief innovation officer at Rudi’s (where he’s an investor), which, incidentally, recently launched a collaboration with Justin’s on its line of frozen “PB&J Sandos.”

“This gives me a chance to work with both sides of the organizations to make sure that we’re maximizing the potential for those products,” Gold said. “I can’t think of this ever really happening before. It feels really good for me because it doesn’t feel like I’m splitting myself in two; it feels like these things are unified.”

Though the process is complex, the Forward team is confident that Justin’s will become a fully independent and “truly standalone” business in the next six to 12 months, at which point there will no longer be linkages with Hormel across any functional areas. Additionally, Justin’s is opening up a new headquarters in Boulder, Colo.

During this transition period, one of the biggest priorities for the Justin’s team is to emphasize quality and ensure there is no customer interruption, according to Burns.

Looking Ahead

“The first thing we need to do is fix the business and this requires a lot of discipline and focus,” Gold said.

Gold will consult on how to fix “quality and distribution concerns” and recapture lost ACV, while also looking ahead to update the brand and innovate its portfolio.

“There are some places that Rudi’s can win, that Justin’s really doesn’t have a strength in and there are places where Justin’s can win where Rudi’s doesn’t have a strength,” he said. “It’s a really fun opportunity for me to go find things that can work at Rudi’s or work at Justin’s or work together.”

Once the “pick and shovel work” of the carve-out is complete and the brand establishes a solid foundation, Justin’s will double down on marketing, innovation, and consumer awareness.

During the nine years that Justin’s was under Hormel’s ownership, the food and beverage landscape – and the world itself – underwent significant changes, per Burns. He pointed to Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods, the rise of the club channel and the influence of content creators on Instagram and TikTok.

“The first time around, Justin’s didn’t have a club presence, a c-store presence, or an international presence. You think about that today and go, ‘Those are areas of green field. How do we get to them?’ That’ll be our focus as we stand up Justin’s,” said Burns.

The potential for product innovation with the brand is “limitless,” according to both Staub and Burns. That includes extensions in the nut butter and confection categories, as well as a potential expansion into “snackfections.”

“We’re thinking about how we want to bring this brand to life in the public’s eye and what the optimal portfolio mix is between peanut butter, almond butter, confection and snackfections,” said Staub. “Justin will have great insight as to what should work based on his deep experience of having built the brand, and Peter is a fantastic leader who is strategic and very strong operationally.”

He continued, “This is an archetypal Forward investment. We see tremendous opportunity for Justin’s. We’re going to get this to a stand-alone and then you’re going to see Justin’s out in the world in a way that you haven’t before.”