True Food Innovations acquires assets of meal kit firm Chef’d

US-based True Food Innovations (TFI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of True Family Enterprises, has acquired all the assets of Los Angeles-based meal kit company Chef’d for an undisclosed sum.

The deal covers the entirety of the Chef’d asset portfolio, comprising plant, property, equipment, brand and intangible assets.

TFI plans to combine the acquired assets into its existing businesses.

True Food Innovations official Jones said: “We are looking forward to working with brands and former customers as we restructure and operate the Chef’d assets.

“We have already developed and are in the market with long-shelf-life retail meal kits under the brand of True Chef, so we seized the opportunity to acquire the assets and brand of Chef’d as the transaction will be accretive to our business from day one.

“We believe the retail channel will continue to grow and we will concentrate our efforts on that portion of the Chef’d businesses.”

The Los Angeles-based meal kit company recently ceased its operations due to funding and expense issues.

TFI primarily offers manufacturing services, turnkey product development and high-pressure processing (HPP) packaging solutions, along with customer partnerships to facilitate the introduction of private-label meal kits and retail-ready HPP products for US and overseas markets.

The company, via its sister enterprise True Fresh HPP, also manufactures food products that make use of HPP technology to produce clean-label, all-natural refrigerated products, which are said to carry a safe and extended shelf-life of up to ten times the standard range.

True Fresh HPP / True Family Enterprises founder and CEO Alan True said: “Our unique position as a leader in the HPP processor field enables us to service a large capacity of retail customers.

“Additionally, our team of food scientists and culinary experts are constantly innovating ways to utilise our HPP technology, which has allowed us to create long-lasting meal kits and other food products that carry a fresh, clean label and longer shelf-life, which will perform well within the retail marketplace.”