Schwan's Co., one of the country's leading makers of frozen pizzas, is expanding the business for the second time in two months.
The Marshall, Minn.- and Bloomington-based company said Monday it acquired Better Baked Foods of North East, Pa., and Drayton Foods of Fargo, both subsidiaries of NE Foods Inc.
Terms of the deals weren't disclosed.
The move comes just weeks after Schwan's acquired MaMa Rosa's Pizza, based in Sidney, Ohio.
"We are focused on adding to our capabilities and growing our share of the U.S. pizza market. We are extremely happy to add Better Baked Foods and Drayton Foods to our family of businesses as both are highly regarded for providing quality foods to their retail, food-service and home-delivery customers nationwide," Dimitrios Smyrnios, Schwan's CEO, said in a statement.
Privately held Schwan's, known by Midwesterners for its golden home-delivery trucks, is the maker of several well-known retail frozen pizza brands such as Red Baron, Freschetta and Tony's. The company offers a variety of frozen pizzas in its online delivery service.
Better Baked Foods manufactures pizza, French bread pizza and sandwich items for private label customers. In retail stores, the company sells products such as Papa Presto, Zap-A-Snack and Odyssey.
Drayton Foods makes pizza crusts, dough balls, breadsticks and dinner rolls.
"The addition of Better Baked, Drayton and MaMa Rosa's to Schwan's will deepen our collaborations with strategic food-service and retail customers on innovating and growing the pizza category and meeting consumer demand," Smyrnios said in the statement.
Patrick Thomas • 612-673-7740
