MELVILLE, N.Y.—The Hain Celestial Group Inc. acquired the assets and business of World Gourmet Marketing L.L.C., including its Sensible Portions® brand of Garden Veggie Straws™, Pita Bites® and other snack products. The transaction is expected to be accretive to Hain Celestial's earnings during the first quarter of its fiscal year 2011.
World Gourmet co-founder Jason Cohen will serve as president of Hain Celestial's Club Division, reporting to John Carroll, chief executive officer of Hain Celestial United States. In this capacity, Cohen will be responsible for sales of all Hain Celestial brands into the club channel. World Gourmet co-founder Jerry Bello will serve as vice president, snacks and corporate innovation, reporting to Mr. Cohen. In this capacity, Bello will lead the development and innovation of snack foods with dynamic new concepts for various Hain Celestial brands from the Sensible Portions Lancaster, Pennsylvania facility.
"As co-founders of the Sensible Portions brand and World Gourmet Marketing L.L.C., Jerry Bello and I are very excited about joining the management team of Hain Celestial," Cohen said. "We see a tremendous opportunity to leverage our knowledge and experience within the club store channel to create incremental sales for Hain Celestial's brands."
Irwin D. Simon, president and chief executive officer of Hain Celestial, commented: "We are excited about adding Sensible Portions snack products to our portfolio of brands, and we welcome Jason Cohen and Jerry Bello with their proven track record of building a successful business. We view this as a strategic acquisition for both companies, combining Hain Celestial's impressive group of brands and management team with World Gourmet's history of developing and marketing innovative products, particularly in the club store channel. We look forward to building a strong club business for many of our Hain Celestial brands as we plan to present a full portfolio of products to the club store channel alongside Sensible Portions."
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
The Hain Celestial Group participates in many natural categories with well-known brands that include Celestial Seasonings®, Terra®, Garden of Eatin'®, Health Valley®, WestSoy®, Earth's Best®, Arrowhead Mills®, MaraNatha®, SunSpire®, DeBoles®, Gluten Free Café™, Hain Pure Foods®, Hollywood®, Spectrum Naturals®, Spectrum Essentials®, Walnut Acres Organic®, Imagine®, Almond Dream®, Rice Dream®, Soy Dream®, Rosetto®, Ethnic Gourmet®, Yves Veggie Cuisine®, Granose®, Realeat®, Linda McCartney®, Daily Bread™, Lima®, Grains Noirs®, Natumi®, JASON®, Zia® Natural Skincare, Avalon Organics®, Alba Botanica®, Queen Helene®, Tushies®, TenderCare® and Martha Stewart Clean™. Hain Celestial has been providing "A Healthy Way of Life™" since 1993.
World Gourmet Marketing, LLC has been developing and marketing gourmet snacks since 2002. Produced under the company's premier brand Sensible Portions®, World Gourmet products include all-natural and lower-calorie snacks such as Garden Veggie Straws™, Potato Straws, Apple Straws™, Miner's Gold®, Pita Bites® and Multi Grain Crisps. Available internationally, these products are marketed under the World Gourmet and Sensible Portions brands and are sold through grocery, deli, warehouse club, vending and other channels of distribution.