When it comes to investing, Henk Hartong certainly likes the frozen pizza market. The chairman and chief executive officer of Brynwood Partners got his first taste with the purchase of Wheeling, Ill.-based Richelieu Foods, a contract manufacturer of pizza that the private equity firm purchased in 2005 and sold five years later.

In 2020, Brynwood Partners reentered the market by acquiring Great Kitchens Food Co., a leader in supplying retail delis with frozen pizza. The company operates a bakery in Chicago Heights, Ill., that supplies 85% of the crusts to its pizza topping plant in Romeoville, Ill., where it’s also headquartered. In 2023, the firm purchased Uno Foods, which makes Chicago-style deep-dish pizza under the Pizzeria Uno brand in Brockton, Mass., and put it under the Great Kitchens’ umbrella.

“We always admired Great Kitchens as the real star of the show in take-and-bake pizza,” Hartong said. “They really invented the category.”

This year, Brynwood Partners acquired Miracapo Pizza Co., Elk Grove Village, Ill., which was formerly known as Little Lady Foods and operates three facilities that co-manufacture frozen pizza for other brands.

However, the firm is keeping Great Kitchens and Micacapo separate for a couple of reasons. First, they’re owned by different investment funds run by Brynwood Partners. Great Kitchens is in the Brynwood VIII portfolio while Miracapo is in Brynwood IX.

Second, Hartong said, the businesses target separate markets. Miracapo’s business-to-business, contract manufacturing model is completely different than the take-and-bake pizza segment where Great Kitchens is a major player in the deli arena and is expanding the Pizzeria Uno brand nationally in the freezer case.

“We are not planning to run them in any connected way,” he noted. “That said, there are synergies with collaborating with the management teams of the two companies.”

Hartong explained the two businesses may share best practices in manufacturing and procurement as well as potential commercialization with customers.

“We’re looking at ways to optimize our collective businesses now that we have six pizza manufacturing plants within the two companies,” he said.

He added that the businesses will run under a similar operating strategy.

“What we’ve learned during the pandemic and the last four years is that consistent quality and service matter, in many cases, as much as price,” Hartong said. “If you do those three things really well, you’re going to win in a category typically seen as low margin and low profit.”

This article is an excerpt from the November 2024 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on Great Kitchens, click here.