McCain Foods has acquired a 70% stake in Sérya, a Brazilian food company that operates in the pre-formed potato market.
With the investment, McCain continues to strengthen its position in Brazil one year after establishing a partnership with Forno de Minas in which it acquired 49% of the company. Forno de Minas owns the remaining 30% of the Sérya business.
Brazil is one of the main focus areas of McCain globally, where its strategy is to invest in enabling accelerated growth.
“Brazil currently reports as the fifth largest market in the world for frozen French fries, with broad potential to become the third largest market by 2021”, said Aluizo Neto, managing director of McCain in Brazil, who will also lead Sérya’s operations.
“This investment allows McCain to focus more efforts on local development of high value-added products and in line with our leadership strategy in the potatoes and appetisers market,” he added.
Founded in 2015 in the city of Araxá, Sérya offers a “wide range of innovative potato products” for the Brazilian market, according to McCain.
Announcing the Forno de Minas deal last year, McCain said both itself and Forno de Minas have complementary appetiser and snack strategies.
Forno de Minas produces a range of frozen and fresh products such as waffles, stuffed pasta, puff pastry and potato breads. The company exports its products to more than 15 countries, operates three factories in Brazil and registered annual revenue of $103 million in 2017.
Last week, McCain Foods USA, the US unit of McCain Foods, announced an investment of $300 million to expand its potato processing site in Othello, Washington.
An additional 170,000 square feet of production space will be built at the facility. Construction will begin this month and it is estimated the expansion will be completed by the end of 2021.
By Jules Scully
Source: FoodBev
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