Soft drinks giant PepsiCo has sealed the deal on Wednesday to acquire US nutrition food company Health Warrior.
PepsiCo aims to expand its nutrition portfolio with the addition of this plant-based product range including nutrition bars and on-trend offerings.
“We’re thrilled to welcome the innovative Health Warrior brand to the PepsiCo family,” said Al Carey, CEO, PepsiCo North America. “We continue to position ourselves at the forefront of changing consumer preferences and trends. This acquisition helps us increase our presence in the nutrition bar category, which is an attractive growth space.”
Health Warrior is owned by founders Dan Gluck, Nick Morris and CEO Shane Emmett. They built the company with the desire to make nutrient-dense foods more accessible to more Americans. Their products use plant-based superfood ingredients that have low sugar content.
The plant-based products are made from nutrient-dense, non-GMO and gluten-free ingredients. Its current offerings include nutrition bars made with chia and pumpkin seeds, mug muffins and protein powder.
“We’re fired up to join PepsiCo and continue to put nutritious options within reach of significantly more people,” said Emmett. “With a shared mission to help create healthy relationships between people and food, PepsiCo is the ideal partner to bring our nutrient-dense, plant-forward offerings to even more consumers and considerably accelerate Health Warrior’s growth. This is the whole reason we started the company.”
Emmett will continue to lead the plant-based company in Richmond, Va. It is PepsiCo’s first investment that will be based at The PepsiCo HIVE, which is a newly-created entity within the company focused on growing emerging, smaller brands.
“This will enable us to continue building the Health Warrior brand at a deliberate and sustainable pace and to leverage its entrepreneurial expertise and talent to benefit our broader portfolio,” said Seth Kaufman, president of PepsiCo North America Nutrition, who oversees The HIVE. “Health Warrior is a nutrition-forward trailblazer that can provide great insight into high value categories and consumers while benefiting from our expertise and resources to bring plant-based nutrition to more people.”
