❤️‍🔥 Forward Consumer Partners Acquires Firehook Bakery

Forward Consumer Partners has made its first purchase. 

Having closed its $425 million fund in December, the newly launched CPG private equity firm has used some of that capital to acquire a majority stake in Virginia-based Firehook Bakery. 

The top-selling artisanal cracker company was founded as a neighborhood bread bakery in 1992 by Lebanese immigrant Pierre Abushacra. It now sells a 6-SKU line of crackers, with flavors like Za’atar, Rosemary Sea Salt, and Cinnamon, and continues to operate bakeries in Alexandria and in Washington, D.C.’s DuPont Circle neighborhood. 

With the close of the deal, Maura Mottolese, an experienced CPG leader who has been the CEO of brands like Cholula Hot Sauce and Tate’s Bake Shop, will become CEO of Firehook. Abushacra will remain a board member, but Forward Consumer Partners Managing Partner Matt Leeds will become Chairman.

Become an Insider to read the full story and learn what made Firehook an attractive target and where Forward plans to take the brand.

As its name suggests, Big Picture Foods has always had a vision that goes beyond its flagship line of fermented, organic and regeneratively-grown olives, peppers and capers, sold in about 1,000 doors. Now, with a new iteration packed in glass jars, that vision is coming into view.

🚚 The jarred products launched into Sprouts’ Innovation set last year and later rolled out to 131 West Coast Whole Foods stores. The move quickly paid off as now they’ve secured placement nationwide in Sprouts’ mainline set and are expected to enter Whole Foods stores nationwide in June.

🌶️ Priced in-line with the brand’s fresh, plastic-tray-packed version (both carry an SRP of $5.49), the jars have given Big Picture a set that jibes with the category conventions while providing an alternative, premium product in conventional retail. 

📬 “There’s a great example that I heard called the Toledo test. It basically says: do your products have mass appeal to the postman in Toledo? We can [now] confidently say yes,” said co-founder Daniela Jensen.

Insiders can read the full story on Nosh and learn more about Big Picture’s business model and what opportunities the new format unlocked.

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