Perimeter Brands

Business Description

Perimeter Brands is a leading manufacturer of refrigerated salsas, dips, and spreads. The Company goes to market in retail through three leading brands, La Mexicana, Tabla Fresca Farmstand and Italian Rose, as well as select private label and foodservice programs. The Company specializes in fresh, better-for-you products that are refrigerated and displayed at the perimeter of the store. Perimeter Brands has offered excellence in sourcing, product innovation, processing, and distribution for over 30 years.

Value Creation

First Institutional Capital

Partnered with an entrepreneur-owned business with significant value creation potential. At the time of acquisition, the Company had limited professional management, sales capabilities, and finance & accounting resources.

Human Capital

A critical factor to Perimeter Brand’s M&A success and infrastructure development was the significant investment in human capital at the Company. Early in our hold, we appointed a former BPCP II portfolio company Chairman and OEG member as the CEO & Chairman of Perimeter Brands. Under his leadership, the team added many senior level, professional managers in Operations, Marketing, Human Resources, Finance, Technical Services and developed the largest direct salesforce in the category.

M&A

After conducting a strategic review to define key characteristics for M&A targets, Blue Point acquired La Mexicana, a leading regional fresh salsa brand on the West Coast. The acquisition complemented Perimeter Brands’ customer base, creating a balanced profile across grocery, club, mass and foodservice, and provided a secondary production site on the West Coast. The opportunity aligned extremely well with the strategies of the platform, allowing for redundant manufacturing capabilities, optimized production locations and facilitated the strategy of selling multiple salsa brands into separate retailer segments (produce, deli and dairy).

Operational Efficiencies and Infrastructure

Blue Point and Perimeter Brands made significant investments in facilities and equipment to more than double capacity while also driving production efficiency and improving food safety. All fresh and refrigerated products were moved into purpose-built, temperature-controlled production facilities with state-of-the-art food safety elements integrated directly into the layout and design. Additionally, substantially all production equipment was upgraded or replaced to enable high speed operation and substantial automation. Perimeter Brands’ industry leading food safety and production capabilities were recognized by customers and were significant contributors to the Company’s market share growth. Professionalizing its purchasing function and reducing its commodity risk by establishing multiple supplier contracts also helped improve and stabilize the Company’s margins and create a more reliable supply chain.

Sales & Marketing

Blue Point and the Perimeter Brands management team brought data-oriented CPG best practices to the Company and its brands. Early in the investment period, Perimeter Brands conducted a number of consumer tests across product formulation, branding, and packaging, allowing the Company to adjust and reposition to optimize consumer taste profiles and brand perceptions both nationally and regionally. Based on the research the Company developed new branding and packaging presentations as well as evolving the ingredient deck for certain products. The Company also invested in custom data feeds that allowed the company to track and benchmark velocities across retailers and products, enabling data-driven decision making with respect to trade spend, forecasting and sales optimization. Finally, Perimeter hired sales leadership and built a new national sales staff.