A Well-Cured Exit: Insignia Sells Tillamook Country Smoker to Second Nature

Insignia Capital Group has completed the sale of Tillamook Country Smoker, a producer of jerky and smoked meat snacks, to Second Nature Brands, a snacking platform owned by CapVest Partners.

Tillamook Country Smoker makes protein-rich, clean-label meat snacks — beef jerky, meat sticks, and smoked sausages — from simple, all-natural ingredients. The company sells nationwide across every major retail channel, including grocery, club, mass, convenience, and e-commerce, and operates two manufacturing facilities in Oregon. Its lineup also includes a Zero Sugar line, aimed at shoppers cutting added sugar from their diets. The business was founded in 1975 in Bay City, Oregon, by Dick Crossley alongside his father, Art, and remained a third-generation, family-owned operation for decades.

Insignia Capital acquired Tillamook Country Smoker in May 2017 from its founding family. Over the nine years that followed, the company more than tripled its revenue and EBITDA, growing from a predominantly Pacific Northwest regional brand into a nationwide seller of meat-snack products.

During its ownership term, Insignia assisted the company with modernizing its manufacturing operations, expanding its distribution across national retail channels, and adding new product development including its Zero Sugar platform.

“It has been a privilege to partner with the Tillamook Country Smoker team and the entire Tillamook community,” said David Lowe, managing partner at Insignia Capital. “We are proud of everything the team accomplished together and look forward to watching what they accomplish with Second Nature Brands in their next phase of growth.”

Second Nature Brands is a maker of better-for-you snacks and treats whose product portfolio includes Kar’s Nuts, Sahale Snacks, Sanders, Brownie Brittle, Voortman, and Second Nature Snacks. According to the company, Kar’s Nuts and Second Nature Snacks are among the top-selling trail mix brands in the nation, including the #1 selling Kar’s Sweet ‘n Salty Mix.

CapVest Partners acquired the company from Palladium in April 2022. Palladium had acquired Kar’s Nuts in 2017 and formed Second Nature Brands in 2021 as an umbrella entity for Kar’s Nuts, Second Nature Snacks, and Sanders Chocolates (acquired by Kar’s in 2018). Today, Second Nature Brands, led by CEO Adam Butler, is headquartered in Madison Heights, Michigan, with 380 employees and two manufacturing facilities in the state.

The meat-snack category has been one of the more durable growth stories in US food. Analysts at Towards Food & Beverage put the domestic market at roughly $20.5 billion in 2025 and project growth of about 6.9% a year through the middle of the next decade, when it could approach $40 billion. Jerky remains the anchor of the category, accounting for roughly 42% of product sales in 2024 according to SkyQuest. Demand is driven by shoppers trading up to high-protein, portable snacks and away from sugar and artificial ingredients — the same clean-label and zero-sugar trends Tillamook has built its recent growth around.

The result is a fragmented field of regional smokehouses and national brands competing for shelf space across grocery, club, convenience, and e-commerce. That structure has made scaled, efficient producers attractive to both strategic acquirers and private equity, and it is the backdrop against which a national platform such as Second Nature Brands adds a category-anchoring jerky brand.

Insignia Capital Group makes both control and influential minority equity investments of $20 million to $100 million in lower middle-market companies that have at least $20 million of revenue and $5 million of EBITDA. Sectors of interest include business and tech-enabled services companies, and consumer brands and products. Insignia Capital closed its third fund, Insignia Capital Partners III LP, with over $500 million in capital commitments in November 2025. Insignia was founded in 2011 and is headquartered near San Francisco in Walnut Creek.

CapVest Partners is a European mid-market private equity firm that was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in London with additional offices in New York and Dublin.

Houlihan Lokey was the financial advisor to Tillamook Country Smoker and Insignia Capital Group. Solomon Partners was the financial advisor to Second Nature Brands.