nce food group Greencore has stepped up its expansion in the US with the acquisition of a US manufacturer of food to go products and a $10 million (€7.3m)investment in its Jacksonville, Florida facility.The London-listed group said today that it has acquired Lettieri’s, a leading manufacturer of food to go products for the US convenience store channel, for an undisclosed sum.
The food manufacturer operates from a purpose-built facility in Shakopee, Minnesota and employs approximately 130 staff. For the year ended March 2013, it generated revenue of $36.4 million and attributable EBITDA of $4.7 milion. Greencore said that the transaction will be funded from existing debt facilities and is expected to be “modestly earnings accretive in the current financial year”.
The food group also confirmed that it is investing approximately $10 million in its Jacksonville, Florida facility in order to create the capability to manufacture frozen food to go products. The investment will provide capacity to support up to $100 million of revenue in products designed for hot eating at both breakfast and lunch. The group expects that the first such products will come to market in the final quarter of this year.
Patrick Coveney, chief executive officer of Greencore, said that the announcements represent an “important further step” on its journey to build a focused, growing, food to go business in the US.
“Both the Lettieri’s acquisition and the capital investment into Jacksonville deepen our manufacturing capability and widen our product range to more fully serve the food to go needs of our customers in the small store channels. Both investments are consistent with our long-term approach of developing high quality manufacturing facilities to meet the specific growth strategies of our key US customers,” he said.
