London / UK. (ial) An investment company indirectly held by Investindustrial VII L.P. has acquired the US-based Parker Food Group (PFG) from The Riverside Company. PFG is a leading developer and manufacturer of specialty, value-added ingredients in the North American market, with a focus on inclusions and toppings.
The Company’s product offering includes baked inclusions, toppings, crumbs/streusels, pralines and cookie components that are sold to industrial branded B2C customers, foodservice clients and industrial B2B customers.
PFG has best-in-class profitability in the industry, and over the past 10 years consistently showed double-digit top line growth. The Company employs approximately 370 employees and is led by Greg Hodder (CEO), who joined PFG in 1999.
PFG’s R+D team collaborates with customers’ product development teams to develop products that address specific customer requirements, which typically involves 150+ touch points between PFG and the customer from new product ideation to commercialisation, with PFG in most cases developing a unique ingredient starting from the Company’s broad portfolio of product format capabilities.
The North American specialty inclusions and toppings market was worth USD 1.7 billion in 2021 and is expected to continue growing at approximately 10 percent CAGR ’21-26, driven by volume growth of end markets, higher penetration of specialty inclusions ingredients compared to traditional ingredients driven by premiumisation trends and increased need for taste differentiation.
The Company, headquartered in Fort Worth (Texas), significantly invested in its manufacturing facilities and has a state-of-the-art manufacturing footprint with 3 factories in US, located respectively in Mexico (Missouri), Perry (New York) and Fort Worth.
PFG will form part of Investindustrial’s broader group of food ingredients companies including CSM Ingredients, Hi-Food and Italcanditi, which jointly have a turnover of close to EUR 1 billion.
Andrea C. Bonomi, Chairman of Investindustrial’s Industrial Advisory Board, commented: «Our extensive experience in the food ingredients sector and our track record of growing our portfolio companies, makes us the perfect steward for a new, exciting and more global chapter in PFG’s development. We are building an Ingredient- Tech platform with the vision to create unique and innovative solutions for the food industry. PFG will become part of and contribute to our family of existing ingredients investments with CSM Ingredients, Hi-Food and Italcanditi.»
Greg Hodder, CEO PFG, said: «With strong experience in the sector, Investindustrial is our partner of choice and with its help as a responsible investor and sector specialist, we look forward to accelerating PFG’s growth and entering into new markets.»
