ST. LOUIS — 8th Avenue Food & Provisions, Inc., which is partially owned by Post Holdings, Inc., has reached an agreement to acquire the Ronzoni dry pasta brand and a dry pasta manufacturing facility located in Winchester, Va., from Riviana Foods Inc. in a transaction valued at $95 million.
According to Information Resources, Inc., the Ronzoni brand generated dollar sales of $132.48 million in the 52 weeks ended Feb. 21, which was up 29% from the same period a year ago.
Riviana Foods, which is a unit of Madrid, Spain-based Ebro Foods, sold most of its dry pasta business last November to TreeHouse Foods in a transaction valued at $242.5 million. The acquisition included a manufacturing plant in St. Louis and the Skinner, No Yolks, American Beauty, Creamette, San Giorgio, Prince and Light ‘n Fluffy, Mrs. Weiss’, Wacky Mac, P&R Procino-Rossi and New Mill brands.
“We are looking forward to welcoming the Ronzoni brand to our team, a pioneer and leader in the pasta category,” said Scott McNair, chief executive officer of 8th Avenue. “With its highly on-trend, versatile product offering, state-of-the art facility and impressive customer base, Ronzoni has a strong foundation from which to build on its leading market presence. Together with the Ronzoni team, we look forward to driving further growth and scale by delivering innovative products to all our loyal customers.”
With the pending sale of Ronzoni, Ebro Foods effectively will have departed the dry pasta category in the United States. Ebro maintains a presence in the North American market through its dry and fresh pasta businesses (Garofalo, Bertagni and Olivieri), frozen products (Ebrofrost), rice and other high value products (Carolina, Mahatma, Minute, Success, Tilda and RiceSelect).
The transaction is expected to be completed in the second calendar quarter of 2021, subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of any applicable regulatory approvals. 8th Avenue expects to fund the transaction with a combination of cash on hand and through borrowings under its existing credit facilities.
The 8th Avenue Food & Provisions unit includes Dakota Growers Pasta, Attune Foods, Golden Boy Foods and American Blanching Co.