NEW YORK — Collier Creek Holdings, a New York-based special purpose acquisition company, is in talks to acquire Hanover Pa.-based Utz Quality Foods, Inc. in a transaction valued at more than $1 billion, according to a report from Bloomberg.
Collier Creek’s founders include Roger K. Deromedi, former chief executive officer of Kraft Foods in the early 2000s and more recently chairman of Pinnacle Foods.
Founded in 1921, Utz claims to be the largest privately-held and family-managed branded salty snack company in the United States, producing a full line of products, including potato chips, pretzels, cheese snacks, corn chips, tortillas, veggie stix/straws, popcorn, onion rings, pork skins and more. Its brands include Utz, Golden Flake, Zapp’s, “Dirty” Potato Chips, Good Health, Snikiddy, Boulder Canyon, TGI Fridays Snacks and Bachman.
Over the past year Utz has broadened its portfolio through the acquisitions of Kitchen Cooked Inc., a Farmington, Ill.-based manufacturer and distributor of snack foods, and Conagra Brands, Inc.’s direct-store delivery snacks business, which includes the Tim’s Cascade Snacks, Hawaiian Snacks, Erin’s, El Restaurante, Snyder’s of Berlin, Pop-N-Thin and Husman’s brands.
Collier Creek and Utz have not commented on the proposed transaction.