Refresco, the Rotterdam-based independent beverage bottler, has completed its acquisition of SunOpta for $6.50 per share in cash, valuing the plant-based beverage, broth and fruit snacks manufacturer at approximately $1.1 billion. The deal, announced in February and finalized in May, takes SunOpta private and removes its shares from public trading.
SunOpta CEO Brian Kocher told Food Business News that the company had reached profitability and was growing revenue and expanding margins before the sale. Yet size constraints limited what the company could pursue alone. "We were probably constrained a little bit in that we were only so big and we only had so much financial capacity to invest in growth and further expansion," Kocher said. "It was about there being more business opportunity out there, and if we had more financial scale we might be able to capture more business opportunities."
Complementary product portfolios
Refresco manufactures private label ready-to-drink coffee, tea, plant-based drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks, juices, carbonated soft drinks, mineral waters and alcoholic beverages for Europe, Australia and North America. SunOpta offers private label plant-based beverages, creamers, broths, ready-to-drink protein shakes, fruit snacks and its Sown brand of plant-based creamers. "There are very complementary product offerings, so those fit in well together," Kocher said.
The fit matters. Were another plant-based beverage company to have acquired SunOpta, Kocher noted, "I think there'd be a lot more redundancies." Instead, the two companies occupy different product territories within overlapping customer bases.
Collaboration, not cost cuts
Kocher described the deal as driven by "common-sense collaboration" rather than cost synergies. Shared purchasing power for materials like cardboard, cross-selling into each other's customer networks and combined food science resources all offer potential value. SunOpta employs 21 food scientists; Refresco has its own team. "They may be able to help some of Refresco's food scientists as well," Kocher said.
Energy-fortified products represent another focus area. "Energy continues to gain speed," he said. "It could be energy in plant based, it could be energy in fruit snacks." The combined company can now address this trend across multiple formats.
Growth engine: fruit snacks
SunOpta's fruit snacks segment has driven growth for 21 consecutive quarters with double-digit increases and now accounts for roughly 20% of total revenue. The company invested $25 million in a new production line at its Omak, Washington facility, which opened in the week the article was published. "There's not a lot" of growth categories in food generally, Kocher said, but "this one is growing and continues to grow at double digits."
Plant milk trends
SunOpta manufactures oat, almond, soy, coconut, hemp and other plant-based milks. Oat currently leads sales due to its versatility in coffee and coffee shops. Almond continues to drive category growth overall. Soy volumes have ticked up recently, though commodity price swings affect mix across plant milk types.
Refresco operates more than 75 manufacturing sites across Europe, Australia and North America. SunOpta operates seven facilities, six in the United States and one in Canada. The company remains a standalone operating unit within Refresco for now. "I don't think you'll see big wholesale changes like SunOpta doesn't exist anymore. Of course we do. We're delivering now as part of the Refresco organization," Kocher said.