The new owner of Opta Food Ingredients is to sell the company's 45,000 square feet headquarters at a price of $4.85 million, said Canadian company Stake technology this week.
Stake, that paid €28m for Opta Food Ingredients at the end of last year, said this week that despite the sale the food ingredients operations will continue to operate from approximately 12,000 square feet of the building and the buyer will assume the balance of the facility.
The acquisitive Canadian company acquired 10.9 million common shares of Opta Food for $2.50 per share. The move followed swiftly on from the purchase in the same month of privately owned Simply Organic, a Toronto-based distributor of organic and natural food products, and Wild West Organic Harvest Co-Operative Association (Wild West), also a Canadian distributor of organic and natural food products.
But the acquisitions do not stop there. Stake Technology - that describes itself as an owner and operator of 'high-growth ethical businesses' - announced on Tuesday this week that it is to purchase Pro Organics Marketing, a distributor of certified organic fresh foods in Canada that posted revenues of $35million this year.
Strengthening its positioning on the market, from the end of October Stake Technology will be known as SunOpta - a hybrid name combining two of its food operations, the SunRich Food Group and Opta Food Ingredients and agreed by shareholders in June. "The inclusion of 'Technology' in our name is no longer appropriate to our focus in the growing integrated natural and organic food business," said Jeremy N. Kendall, chairman and CEO of Stake Technology.