Concord Sales acquires stake in natural food, organics specialist
Indigo Marketing Inc., a Vancouver-based company that sells natural and organic brands in Western Canada, has sold a chunk of its shares to Concord Sales, the Pacific division of Concord National, a national food brokerage company.
Gail Mountain, director of sales for Indigo, declined to give details of the sale, but said her company would continue to operate as a separate division of Concord with the same management and staff.
Indigo was founded in 1993 and represents a number of natural food brands such as Clif Bar, Kettle Foods, Nature’s Path, Blue Diamond, Amy’s Kitchen, Seventh Generation and Annie’s Homegrown.
“We’ve been working very diligently and hard to get natural foods into the
Founded in 1969, Concord represents brands such as Tetley, Mazola, Colgate, Sun-Rype and BeeMaid in the grocery, drug, mass merchandizing, club store, food service and convenience channels.
Mountain says Indigo’s brands will now have access to Concord’s buy and sell warehouse and its distribution system.
“It will give our manufacturers the opportunity to expand into areas that we have not been able to penetrate such as food service,” she says. “We can now expand through better coverage of traditional grocery and drug markets while continuing our coverage of our core business in natural foods.”
Mike Donald, CEO of Concord, says the acquisition is a good fit for the company both from a business point of view and as a cultural fit.
“Natural foods and organics are so important to a growing number of Canadians, the growth of the channel is outstanding,” he said in a news release. “To stay relevant in this industry we have to be there in a big way, and in the right way. Indigo does that for us.”