United Natural Foods signs agreement to purchase Haddon House Food Products for $217.5m

United Natural Foods (UNFI) has signed a definitive agreement to purchase Haddon House Food Products, in addition to several affiliated entities and real estate, for approximately $217.5m.

Set up in 1960 by the Anderson family, Haddon is a distributor and merchandiser of natural and organic and gourmet ethnic products across the eastern part of the US.

Haddon has a diverse, multichannel customer base, including conventional supermarkets, gourmet food stores and independently owned product retailers.

UNFI president and CEO Steven Spinner said: “Haddon House has a unique product and service offering that we expect to play an important role in our ongoing strategy to build out UNFI’s gourmet and ethnic product categories across the country.

“The Haddon House team has demonstrated exemplary customer service and growth over the last decade while also building a distinctive private label brands business.”

Haddon House Food Products president David Anderson Sr said: “This transaction will provide us with greater operating scale and resources to further develop our product and service offering as we work with the UNFI team to broaden our geographic reach and route to market across complementary and new customer bases.”

The closure of the deal is expected in the fourth quarter of this year following regulatory approvals.

With the closure of the deal, Haddon will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of the UNFI .

UNFI expects to fund the purchase with a combination of available cash and borrowings under its revolving credit facility.

UNFI distributes more than 85,000 products throughout the US and Canada.

The company serves a variety of retail formats such as traditional supermarket chains, natural product superstores, independent retail operators and food service establishments.