Grace Foods (USA), Inc (Grace Foods), a company owned by GraceKennedy Limited (GKL), a publicly traded Jamaican corporation listed on the Jamaica and Trinidad stock exchanges, has announced that it will acquire a 49 per cent equity stake in a new joint venture company, Majesty Foods LLC (Majesty Foods).

Majesty Foods is a Florida-based manufacturer of patty and empanada products. The range of Majesty’s product portfolio is marketed under its own brands ‘Patty King” and “Latin Delights” as well as under other third-party brands.

The company has extensive and valuable co-packing relationships with leading USA companies and its products are sold through multiple retailers in the USA including Whole Foods and Publix. Majesty Foods also sells to leading food services distributors including Sysco, Cheney Brothers and Jetro/Restaurant Depot.

In the USA, Grace Foods currently owns and operates a 23,000-square foot cold storage and food processing facility located in Florida. As part of the agreement, Grace Foods will outsource to Majesty Foods its current factory operations which include the production of a wide portfolio of frozen Hispanic and Caribbean products for the retail and food service channels.

“Majesty Foods is the current manufacturer of ‘Grace’ brand patties for the USA market which are available nationwide at leading retailers including Wal-Mart and Target. ‘Grace’ brand patties have been doing exceptionally well, experiencing double-digit growth in the market. The consolidation of these two entities will create a stronger and better capitalised business through various synergies allowing Majesty Foods to provide an enhanced service offering to all its customers,” said Don Wehby, GKL’s Group CEO.

“We have been aggressively pursuing opportunities for mergers and acquisitions as a part of our long-term strategy. This joint venture is a step in the right direction for our foods division as we strive to leverage our leading position in the USA-Caribbean market to become one of the top players in the USA-Hispanic market through our ‘La Fe’ brand,” Wehby added.

The principals of Majesty Foods, Gary Tie-Shue and Colin Chang, who are also of Jamaican descent, will continue to lead the manufacturing operation that they started 20 years ago.

“We are very excited to be partnering with Grace Foods and look forward to embracing the challenge of transforming our business into the leading manufacturer of Hispanic and Caribbean food products in the USA,” said Gary Tie-Shue, president and director of Majesty Foods.

The transaction was arranged by GK Capital Management Limited.