Freedom Foods to acquire Crankt Protein brand

Australia’s Freedom Foods Group (Freedom Foods) has reached an agreement to acquire nutrition products company Crankt Protein.

Crankt Protein is an Australian brand that markets a range of mainstream nutrition products such as beverages and snack bars, which are sold throughout the petrol and convenience, fitness retailers and retail grocery sectors across Australia and New Zealand.

Freedom Foods originally signed a distribution agreement with Crankt Protein in February, which will be effective for a minimum period of three years.

The deal also included the option to acquire the brand subject to sales performance.

Freedom Foods has now elected to acquire Crankt Protein under the initial agreement for a consideration of A$3.5m ($2.5m).

However, after deductions for working capital loans and other offsets, the net cash consideration payable under the deal was A$2.3m ($1.6m).

Freedom Foods’ latest acquisition is expected to allow Crankt to further expand its brand presence within Australia’s everyday, ‘on-the-go’ nutrition market by leveraging Freedom Foods’ existing retail customers and distribution capabilities.

In addition, the Crankt brand, with its established distribution network across petrol and convenience chains, is anticipated to provide Freedom Foods with the opportunity to enhance the distribution of its product range into this growing channel.

The acquisition of Crankt is also slated to complement the Freedom Foods Vital Strength brand, which primarily offers products in the sports and nutrition category.

The Crankt brand provides a unique vertical integration for Freedom Foods’ expanding packaging capabilities in the beverage and bar formats.

It will also enable the company to source protein ingredients from the internal dairy nutritional capabilities that are expected to come online at Shepparton in early 2019.