Dive Brief:
- Rich Products, one of the biggest convenience store foodservice vendors in the U.S., has acquired Great Kitchens Food Company, the largest private label take-and-bake pizza manufacturer in North America, according to a Monday announcement.
- The deal brings Great Kitchens’ fully topped pies, including deep dish and handheld pizza products, to Rich’s pizza portfolio, which has until now mainly included crusts and doughs. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
- Rich’s latest purchase could give its c-store partners more opportunities to evolve their pizza offerings as the industry tries to narrow the foodservice gap with QSRs.
Dive Insight:
Pizza is a staple in Rich’s c-store package, offering convenience retailers several varieties of doughs and crusts such as ready-to-stretch, freezer-to-oven ready, parbaked and flatbread. It's now elevating its pizza offerings with the addition of Great Kitchens which, besides pizza and flatbreads, also produces strombolis and calzones and markets deep-dish pies under the well-known Pizzeria Uno brand.
With Great Kitchens, Rich’s aims to “create a vertically integrated topped pizza and flatbread platform,” as well as expand its crust innovation and grow its capacity, according to the announcement.
“When you combine Great Kitchens' leadership in fully topped pizzas with our strength in crust and dough, you get a one-stop pizza partner with an unmatched breadth of expertise that will allow us to accelerate growth, drive greater innovation and deliver unique and distinct value to our customers,” said Kevin Spratt, president for the U.S.- Canada region for Rich Products.
Romeoville, Illinois-based Great Kitchens has manufacturing facilities in Romeoville; Chicago Heights, Illinois; and Brockton, Massachusetts. The company’s 1,000 associates will join Rich's team of more than 13,000 across 10 countries, creating what Rich’s calls “an expanded joint manufacturing network.”
"Not only is Rich's a well-known leader in the pizza segment, but they bring the size and scale required for us to unlock new opportunities," said Admir Basic, president and CEO of Great Kitchens.
