Hain Celestial has sold its turkey operations, Plainville Farms, to a Delaware limited liability company.
The sale of Plainville Farms is the first step of Hain Celestial’s plan to divest of Hain Pure Protein (HPP), its antibiotic-free and organic poultry subsidiary.
According to a press release from the company, the Plainville Farms business was sold to Plainville Brands LLC, which was formed by a group of private investors. Terms of the transaction were not announced.
According to the WATTAgNet Top Poultry Companies Database, HPP’s turkey operation employs 1,522 people, and the company slaughtered 198 million pounds of live turkeys in 2018.
While Plainville Farms was Hain’s key turkey brand, its key chicken brand is FreeBird. Hain Celestial also owns Empire Kosher Poultry Inc.
In the press release, Hain Celestial said the divestiture of the remainder of HPP remains ongoing and should be concluding in the coming months.
While speaking during the company’s quarterly earnings call on February 7, Hain Celestial Chief Financial Officer James Langrock revealed that the company would not sell HPP to just one buyer. “We had originally anticipated selling HPP in its entirety, and now we expect multiple transactions,” he said.
Hain Celestial formally announced its intent to divest of HPP in February 2018. At the time, Irwin Simon, Hain Celestial’s then-CEO, also the founder of the company, stated that the company had “taken it to the level that we can,” and that under new management, HPP “will now go to the next level.”
Hain Pure Protein was founded in 2004 as a way for Hain Celestial to grow and enter the protein market. According to Simon, who retired in 2018, HPP grew from a $8 million business to a $500 million business.
Mark Schiller, who previously worked for Pinnacle Foods and PepsiCo, succeeded Simon as the CEO of Hain Celestial in October 2018.
