Alchemy Systems, Austin, Texas, merged with Canada-based Catalyst Awareness, a leader in employee behavioral change. The investment is sponsored by global private equity firm, The Riverside Co., and enables Alchemy to increase their offerings to the food retail market.

Building on over a decade of experience establishing successful safety cultures for millions of employees at food manufacturing and processing plants worldwide, Alchemy entered the food retail market in spring of 2013. Catalyst is a loss prevention and health and safety communication company with more than 15 years experience providing a suite of integrated communication tools.

“The real synergy between the two companies is that Catalyst gives Alchemy additional retail expertise to expand our food safety offering,” says Jeff Eastman, chief executive officer of Alchemy. “When you combine what Alchemy does with education and what Catalyst does for awareness, we now have a premiere solution for retailers.”

The loss prevention topics provided by Catalyst will become an added library in Alchemy’s retail offering, which also includes human resources, workplace safety, food safety and customer service. Designed to have multiple touch points for employees to keep key issues and behaviors top of mind, the libraries are supplemented with multiple touch points such as printed posters, email communications, instructor-led trainings and short interactive micro-training courses. Alchemy’s current customers will have the opportunity to add the new offerings moving forward.

"Leading retailers have come to understand that their employees have a direct and significant impact on their stores' performance. Our (Catalyst) retail clients continue to experience significant gains year over year by simply improving their employee communications and measuring the effects,” says Paul Montague, president of Catalyst.

Adding to the partnership with Catalyst, Alchemy aims to accelerate the growth of its grocery retail market through increased synergies and unified branding and marketing. Under the terms of the agreement, Catalyst will continue to operate with the same staff in their Toronto offices working in conjuncture with Alchemy.