December 8, 2017

Leading organic and natural food company Hain Celestial Group Inc. announced that it has acquired Clarks UK Ltd – a natural sweetener and leading maple syrup brand through one of its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Hain Daniels.

Based in Newport, South Wales, privately-owned Clarks produces a range of maple syrups and honey, along with lines of other natural sweeteners including agave nectar, date syrup, and carob fruit syrup which are all marketed under the Clarks brand to leading retailers, foodservice, and industrial buyers across the UK.

“The Clarks brand and products are a strategic fit with the Hain Daniels spreads business for various natural sweeteners applications to complement our health and wellness portfolio of brands as consumers continue to seek to reduce their sugar intake and look for better-for-you alternatives to refined sugar,” said Irwin D. Simon, founder, president, and CEO of Hain Celestial.

The acquisition will not only expand Hain Celestial’s better-for-you food portfolio, but will enable the company to strengthen its presence in the UK sweeteners category.

“I see significant opportunities to further develop the natural sweeteners category,” Hain Daniels CEO James Skidmore told Food Navigator.  “The strength of the Clarks brand puts it in a strong position to capitalise [sic] on the growing consumer trends toward more natural and healthier foods.”

This trend was highlighted in the report, Sweetness and Lite: How Vulnerable is Global Sugar Consumption to Food & Beverage Trends?, issued by Rabobank in August 2017.

Rampant obesity rates doubling over the past 25 years and a greater focus on health and wellness, including the role that nutrition plays in preventative health, has consumers increasingly looking to cut sugar content from their diets. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that consumers in the U.S. saw a per capita sugar consumption rate of 128 pounds of sugar per person in 2016 – more than 100 pounds over the recommended limit of 29 pound a year for men and 20 pounds a year for women by the American Heart Association.

As processed foods and beverages account for 63 percent of global sugar consumption, CPG companies are intently looking for ways to ‘lighten’ the added sugar content in their products through the use of more natural substitutes.

The drive to cut sugar also has extended beyond the consumer into the regulatory sphere – demonstrating that the reduction of sugar is being addressed as more than a consumer fad, but rather as a health issue that needs to be addressed for the long-term.

In January 2016 the U.S. government advised that Americans should limit the amount of added sugar in their diet to less than 10 percent of their total caloric intake – marking the first recommendation of a direct limitation by the government. And by July 2018, all food companies will be required to note amounts of added sugars on their labels.

Driven from multiple directions, global giants such as Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Kellogg’s, and Unilever have all initiated strategies to meet benchmarks to improve the nutritional content and to reduce the sugar content in their foods. Meanwhile, companies such as Hain Celestial are making moves to strengthen their portfolios of healthier food options.

Because of this, Hain Celestial has made itself a prime target for acquisition by the very list of CPG companies mentioned – Kellogg, Nestlé, General Mills, PepsiCo, Mondelez, Danone, and Coca-Cola, reports Food Dive.

And as new food label regulations by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are in the offing, requiring food labels to detail how many grams of added sugar are in each food, having an alternative sweetener producer in its stable will likely only increase Hain’s attractiveness to companies looking to gain greater share of a shifting consumer market.

“The strength of the Clarks brand puts it in a strong position to capitalize on the growing consumer trends towards more natural and healthier foods,” said  Skidmore.

-Lynda Kiernan