Hain Celestial sells Arrowhead Mills and SunSpire brands

Hain Celestial has divested its Arrowhead Mills and SunSpire brands to Hometown Food Company for $15 million as it continues to offload assets.

Arrowhead Mills makes a range of baking mixes, breakfast cereals and flours. The transaction includes the Arrowhead Mills manufacturing facility in Hereford, Texas, and its employees.

SunSpire offers a variety of baking chocolate, baking chips and chocolate candy.

“We are pleased to complete the strategic divestitures of the Arrowhead Mills and SunSpire brands, demonstrating the consistent execution of our stated transformational plan to reduce complexity and simplify the brand portfolio,” said Mark Schiller, Hain Celestial CEO.

“We believe the Arrowhead Mills and SunSpire brands will thrive under new ownership as we focus our future initiatives and investments on areas of our business that better leverage our core competencies to improve our margins, profitability and cash flow generation.”

The announcement comes after Hain Celestial sold its Tilda rice brand to Ebro Foods for $342 million in August. Earlier this year, the US food company announced the sale of its WestSoy tofu, seitan and tempeh unit as well as its Hain Pure Protein business. The firm has retained its WestSoy plant-based beverage unit.

Hometown Food Company is a portfolio company of US private equity firm Brynwood Partners.

“We are delighted to announce the acquisition of the Arrowhead Mills and SunSpire brands into Hometown Foods,” said Henk Hartong, CEO of Brynwood Partners.

“Arrowhead Mills and SunSpire were pioneers in the organic, non-GMO ingredients space and we are excited to add these tremendous brands to our portfolio. This acquisition strengthens our industry position by adding improved capabilities in the better-for-you space that we plan to extend into our other categories.”

Last year, Brynwood Partners acquired JM Smucker’s US baking business for $375 million.