Premium Brands Holdings Corp., Canada, acquired Canada-based Diana's Seafood, a leading supplier of a variety of fresh and frozen seafood products to retail and foodservice customers in the Greater Toronto area.
"We are very excited about Diana's joining our rapidly growing seafood group business platform," says George Paleologou, president and CEO of Premium Brands. "This platform, which has grown from virtually no sales in 2007 to over $135 million in projected sales for 2016, is benefiting from a number of consumer trends, including increased consumer awareness of the health benefits associated with a seafood-rich diet and Canada's changing demographics, both in terms of age and ethnic mix. The Diana's transaction, which is our seafood group's fifth acquisition, moves this platform one step closer to its objective of building Canada's only national seafood distribution network."
"Looking forward, we are also very excited by the growth opportunities created by this acquisition. The most significant of these will be leveraging Diana's brand and customer relationships in the foodservice industry to create additional sales opportunities for our new Ontario foodservice expansion initiative, which is scheduled to begin operations in mid-2017. In addition, our other seafood and wholesale food businesses will be leveraging Diana's strength in certain niche seafood products to expand their product offerings," says Paleologou. "With respect to the Diana's business specifically, not only do we expect it to benefit from our extensive supply chain-related resources, but it will also be able to leverage our new Ontario foodservice facility to accelerate the growth of its foodservice distribution business, which in recent years has been constrained by warehouse capacity limitations."
"I am very excited by the opportunity to join the Premium Brands Group," says Diana Cicirello, president and CEO of Diana's. "We have chosen to partner with them based on their reputation as a long-term and respectful investor in food businesses, and are very excited about our future together."
This acquisition comes on the heels of Premium Brands purchasing Island City Baking, its affiliate Conte Foods and Larosa Fine Foods just last week.