The food-focused firm is buying Sabert, the maker of the containers that carry prepared food home, with founder Albert Salama retaining a minority stake.
Sabert makes the single-use packaging that moves prepared food from the kitchen to the customer. Its catering products include round and square platters, bowls and serving pieces for office and party orders.
September 24, 2026|John McNulty
Butterfly Equity has agreed to acquire Sabert, a manufacturer of plastic, paper and molded fiber containers used by restaurants, caterers and supermarkets to hold, display and carry prepared food.
The transaction gives Sabert its first private equity owner and is Butterfly’s second packaging investment of 2026, following its January acquisition of ePac Flexible Packaging.
Sabert makes the single-use packaging that moves prepared food from the kitchen to the customer. Its catering products include round and square platters, bowls and serving pieces for office and party orders. Its cold-food line includes hinged tubs, salad bowls, sandwich containers and produce, snack and bakery trays, while its hot-food line includes oven-safe meal trays and hinged takeout containers.
Products are sold under brands including Mozaïk Minis, SureStrip, r-PRO, Pulp Ultra and Pulp Plus. Customers include foodservice distributors, supermarket and grocery chains, restaurants and quick-service chains, and fresh meat and food processors.
Much of Sabert’s product development centers on materials. Pulp Ultra containers are molded from plant fiber, resist grease and oil at food temperatures as high as 185°F, can be used in microwaves and ovens, and are certified compostable. Sabert’s r-PRO line uses polypropylene containing 25% recycled plastic and is colored stone gray rather than black so optical sorters at recycling facilities can detect it. Sabert supplies some of that recycled plastic through Nuvida, a recycling facility it established in New Jersey. The company holds more than 400 product patents.
Sabert employs about 3,000 people at 13 manufacturing plants, including nine in the US. Its North American facilities are in California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, New Jersey, Texas and Virginia, with international plants in Belgium, England, Poland and China.
Sayreville, New Jersey-headquartered Sabert is led by CEO Paul McCann, who joined the company as chief executive in January 2024. Mr. McCann previously ran the $1 billion-plus foodservice division of Graphic Packaging International as a senior vice president.
Founder Albert Salama, who started Sabert in 1983, will remain an investor in the company in partnership with Butterfly.
Albert Salama
“For more than four decades, Sabert has been focused on developing unique solutions that help our customers respond to the changing ways consumers eat and live,” said Mr. Salama. “Butterfly’s deep expertise and understanding of our customers and end markets make them an ideal partner for our next chapter. We look forward to working together to continue investing in innovation and delivering exceptional products and services to our customers.”
US demand for foodservice disposables, the single-use packaging and serviceware used by restaurants, caterers and food retailers, is a roughly $19 billion to $28 billion annual market. The Freedonia Group estimates 2025 demand at $28.2 billion, growing 3.4% annually to $33.3 billion in 2030. Mordor Intelligence puts the North American foodservice packaging market at $26.2 billion in 2025, with the US accounting for about 73%.
Within the sector, carryout, drive-thru, delivery and grab-and-go have become permanent consumer habits, increasing demand for packaging that holds up in transit. State bans on foam and restrictions on PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals once widely used to grease-proof paper, are also pushing customers toward molded fiber and recycled plastic. Freedonia expects molded fiber to continue taking share while foam declines.
The sector’s largest recent transaction closed in April 2025, when Novolex, a North Carolina-based packaging manufacturer majority-owned by Apollo since 2022, completed its $6.7 billion acquisition of publicly traded Pactiv Evergreen, an Illinois-based company whose roots date to 1959.
Other competitors include family-controlled, Michigan-based Dart Container, which acquired Solo Cup in 2012; Genpak, a Charlotte-based container maker founded in 1969 and owned by Canada’s Jim Pattison Group; and Inline Plastics, a family-owned manufacturer of clear supermarket containers.
Ownership across the sector continues to change hands. In October 2025, Georgia-Pacific completed its acquisition of Anchor Packaging, a St. Louis-based maker of rigid food containers and cling film founded in 1963, from TJC, which had been the company’s lead investor since 2019.
Sabert gives Butterfly a scaled manufacturer of rigid foodservice and grocery containers alongside ePac’s flexible packaging products for consumer brands. Butterfly acquired ePac, a maker of digitally printed pouches and other flexible packaging with 14 sites in the US and Canada, in January 2026.
Adam Waglay
“Sabert is exactly the type of business we look for at Butterfly: a category-leading player with deep roots across the food ecosystem, differentiated capabilities and tremendous opportunities for continued growth,” said Adam Waglay, a co-founder and managing partner of Butterfly. “As consumers increasingly prioritize convenience and flexibility in how and where they eat, packaging plays an essential role in enabling the food industry to meet those needs. We are thrilled to partner with Albert, CEO Paul McCann, and the entire Sabert team to build on the incredible business they have created.”
Butterfly invests exclusively in the food sector. Areas of interest include food production and inputs, such as ingredients, manufacturing, packaging and equipment; business services, including distribution, outsourced services and software; and branded food and beverage businesses, including packaged foods, beverages and franchised restaurants.
Butterfly closed its second fund in August 2022 with $1 billion of capital, nearly twice the size of its first fund. In August 2025, the firm closed a $527 million continuation fund to continue backing restaurant chain QDOBA. Butterfly was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, with an office in New York.
