Brothers International Food, a platform company of Benford Capital Partners, has completed its first add-on acquisition with the buy of Dennick FruitSource.
Dennick is a Tampa-headquartered supplier of conventional and organic tropical fruit juices, concentrates, and purees to consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies in the beverage, baby food, ice cream, and baked goods sectors.
Dennick’s product catalog includes more than 25 fruits including acai, apple, apricot, banana, blueberry, cherry, coconut, grape, lemon, lime, mango and pineapple.
Brothers International Food (BIF) operates through an ingredients division, which imports and distributes fruit ingredients to large food and beverage companies; and an all-natural division that provides branded, private-label, and co-branded freeze-dried fruit snacks. BIF was founded in 2000 by CEO Travis Betters and is headquartered in Rochester, New York.
“Dennick’s founders and their employees have built a terrific company with outstanding and long-tenured customer and supplier relationships,” said Mr. Betters. “We have a unique opportunity to capitalize on significant cross-selling opportunities through the joint efforts of our combined teams.”
Benford acquired BIF in December 2020 and has been actively searching for complementary add-on acquisitions. The addition of Dennick gives BIF’s ingredients division a significantly larger and more diversified customer base and expands it product portfolio. Post-closing, both BIF and Dennick will continue to operate under their current names and will maintain their operations in both Rochester and Tampa.
“BIF’s first add-on acquisition represents an important milestone in our value creation plan to further consolidate the highly fragmented B2B fruit ingredients space,” said Ben Riefe, a managing director at Benford Capital. “The Dennick acquisition significantly expands the company’s customer base, end-product, and channel exposure for its portfolio of tropical fruit ingredients.”
Chicago-based Benford invests in lower middle-market companies that have revenues from $5 million to $50 million. Sectors of general interest include niche manufacturers, unique service companies, and specialty distributors with a specific interest in industrial technology, consumer products and food, B2B e-commerce, and agricultural products and services.
“Dennick represents Benford’s fifth food-related investment, an industry area of focus for the firm,” said Brendan Green, a vice president at Benford. “We are excited to leverage the collective experience of this exceptional management team and our executive partners to help BIF realize its organic and acquisition-driven growth goals in the years ahead.”
In September 2020, Benford Capital held an above target and final closing of its inaugural investment fund, Benford Capital Partners Fund I LP, with capital commitments of $130 million. Since its founding in 2004, Benford has acquired 32 companies – with a current portfolio of 13 platform companies – and now has 11 investment and operating professionals.
© 2021 Private Equity Professional | December 9, 2021
