Interview: Brynwood Partners plans more mergers and acquisitions following Chef Boyardee deal

n the East Coast in particular, on both sides of the state of Pennsylvania, which provides a great opportunity to move much faster than if we were to integrate in different regions.

DB: You mentioned the combination of brands within Hometown Food and Chef Boyardee but, in terms of your retail customers, are they expecting you to bundle products or will they be different platforms within your business?

HH: Chef Boyardee is a brand that’s predominantly sold in Walmart, which is the anchor tenant for Hometown Food. I would call it an anchor tenant because Hometown Food’s predominant customers are Walmart, Kroger, which is the largest conventional grocery store chain, and Dollar General, which is the largest dollar store chain. It’s going to end up being a consolidation of platforms within those retail customers. Chef Boyardee, because it’s a nationally branded product, is so well known, it will likely become the favorite brand for the end customer. Our focus is to make sure that we continue to capitalize on that and gain some of that consumer love to the products. That’s possible given the craving for what’s considered “real food” – a billion-dollar business in the grocery environment is pasta that predates the microwave. It’s pure comfort food for a lot of people. It’s quick to make, the packaging is small enough to take on the run or to a location away from home, and doesn’t need refrigeration.

DB: How does the addition of Chef Boyardee fit into the wider strategy for Brynwood Partners?

HH: It’s a great fit for us. The segment now is using all of the classic production lines. The Chef business was founded around the time of World War II and it had some disruption in the supply chain. It’s never been more relevant in the last fifty years than it is now, which creates opportunities in terms of flavor innovation and packaging innovation. And it’s fun that it’s a pasteurized product which can sit on a shelf for years. That’s an environmental benefit of packaged, pasteurized, ready-to-eat products because it doesn’t require a cool chain.

DB: Looking at your wider strategy for Brynwood Partners’ across the two deals, are we likely to see more acquisitions soon?

HH: We need to go buy some more things. We’re probably going to be doing more if I have anything to say about it. Our team at Scantrack is going to be doing it, because I like deal-making events. Homely Foods is going to stay the way it is. It’s the business that’s well stocked. Some deals are old hat – they either work or they don’t work. If they work you can ride them for however long you want to because all the assets are well-diversified. If they don’t work, they get jettisoned over the local canyon wall, and we focus our time and effort on things that can build big sales; help the company win and help the individual be prosperous. And that’s neat. That’s how we think things are supposed to work. We’re not a buy-and-build, we’re a builder. So we build stuff. It doesn’t always look like the business description that’s currently focused on, but it’s the size that we’re good at. We had to dovetail. It took a process, it took some figuring out. It took some drawing. It’s neat that it looks so neat. It’s funny how when you look back on something, it never starts where it finishes. It starts in a different corner. So we just keep building bigger factories and making better brands. And if we get the ones that work big enough, we can just keep growing until we don’t have to work so hard at all.

Brynwood Partners’ recent acquisitions indicate a strategic growth plan focusing on key consumer brands that resonate with the market. The addition of Chef Boyardee and the successful sale of Harvest Hill Beverage Company demonstrate a strong commitment to building a diverse and iconic American brand portfolio. With the merger of these two key businesses, Brynwood Partners aims to capitalize on their shared resources and synergies to enhance competitiveness and drive growth in the consumer-packaged goods industry. By leveraging the unique positioning of Chef Boyardee and its relevance in today’s market, Brynwood Partners anticipates exciting opportunities for flavor and packaging innovations to meet evolving consumer preferences. The acquisition aligns with the firm’s strategic goals of expanding its presence in the food and beverage sector while presenting the potential for further acquisitions to strengthen its growth trajectory. Through strategic planning and a focus on operational efficiency, Brynwood Partners is poised to continue its track record of successful acquisitions and sustainable growth in the consumer brands sector.