HANOVER, Pa. -- Salty snack maker Utz Quality Foods LLC and family-owned investment firm Metropoulos & Co. have formed a strategic partnership.
Metropoulos & Co., which specializes in iconic American brands and assets, is making a significant investment in the 95-year-old company. The Rice family, which has owned and operated the Utz business for four generations, continues to be the controlling and majority shareholder.
Utz is expected to generate approximately $800 million in combined sales in 2017. Over the past five years, the company has made several other key acquisitions and has expand its distribution and geographic footprint.
The Metropoulos investment, which Utz used to finance its recent acquisition of snack maker Golden Flake, is the largest initial private-equity transaction for a U.S. snack company since 2013, when Metropoulos and Apollo Global Management invested in Hostess Brands.
Its other brands include Pabst Blue Ribbon, Ghirardelli, Perrier-Jouet/Mumm, Chef Boyardee, Hungry Man, Bumble Bee, Vlasic, Gulden’s, Duncan Hines, Aunt Jemima and many others.
“Nearly a century ago, the Utz company was born in a small-town kitchen by an entrepreneurial couple, Bill and Salie Utz, who created a fast-growing business making fresh potato chips for local markets with an intense focus on premier quality products,” said Dylan Lissette, president and CEO of Utz. “For the past 95-plus years, Utz has not only defied the odds as a successful family-owned business, we have thrived, by continuously reinvesting in our company, expanding our offerings and reach through key acquisitions, and never deviating from our core values and our commitment to our people and our high-quality products.”
“Under the family’s strong stewardship, Utz has quietly grown into a snack powerhouse, expanding its product portfolio and geographic reach, while remaining true to its core beliefs and storied history,” said Evan Metropoulos, principal of Metropoulos & Co., Greenwich, Conn. “We are delighted to unite our talents, under a shared respect for great American entities, to celebrate and build upon the brand’s legacy, while helping to chart an exciting course forward.”
“We look forward to working closely with Utz’s management team to develop creative product innovation, capture new consumers and generations of snackers with strategic guerrilla marketing and branding, and to broaden Utz distribution nationally, while enhancing overall operations and focusing on future strategic acquisitions,” said Daren Metropoulos, principal at Metropoulos & Co.
Founded in 1921, Hanover, Pa.-based Utz produces potato chips, pretzels, cheese snacks, corn chips, tortillas, veggie stix/straws, popcorn, onion rings, pork skins and more. Its brands, which include Utz, Golden Flake, Zapp’s, “Dirty” Potato Chips, Good Health, Bachman, Bachman Jax, Wachusett and Snikiddy among others, are distributed nationally and internationally through grocery, mass-merchant, club stores, convenience stores, drug stores and other channels.
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