SunOpta has acquired plant-based beverage brands, Dream and WestSoy, from The Hain Celestial Group for $33 million.

With distribution across the natural and grocery channels, the Dream brand offers a range of shelf-stable, plant-based milks. SunOpta currently produces around half of the brand’s product portfolio and has done so for over a decade.

Available at many national retailers, the WestSoy range includes a variety of shelf-stable soy beverages, including a number with USDA organic certification and certification from the American Heart Association as a heart-healthy product. The entire WestSoy product portfolio is currently produced by SunOpta.

With the acquisition, SunOpta aims to accelerate the growth of its plant-based foods and beverages segment.

“These two brands are perfect examples of niche brands that complement, but do not directly compete with, our vitally important co-manufactured partners,” said SunOpta CEO, Joe Ennen.

“Since SunOpta has been manufacturing these brands for years, when this opportunity presented itself it was an obvious fit for us to own these brands.”

Mark Schiller, Hain Celestial president and CEO, said: “With today’s announcement and the strategic sale of our North America non-dairy beverages business to SunOpta, we provide the market with the latest example of what has been an ongoing transformation of our brand portfolio.

“We considered this business to be non-core within our North American business, and as such, this divestiture fully aligns with both our portfolio simplification process and prioritisation efforts of our ‘get bigger’ brands.”

Hain Celestial previously divested its WestSoy tofu, seitan and tempeh unit, as part of its efforts to streamline its portfolio of brands.

#WestSoy #HainCelestial #Dairyalternatives #Dream #SunOpta #plantbased