Popular Pasta Sauce Brand, Ragú Sold to a Japanese Firm

May 22, 2014

By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com

Unilever announced that it would sell its pasta-sauces business – Ragú and Bertolli brands to the Japanese firm Mizkan Group, for $2.15-billion.

The Ragú pasta sauce brand was established in New York in 1937, and one year later Unilever bought the sauce product. Ragú is considered the top selling pasta sauce in the United States.

According to Unilever, the Ragú and Bertolli pasta sauce segment has annual sales of more than $600 million. The acquisition includes a sauce-processing plant in Owensboro, Kentucky, and a tomato-processing facility in Stockton, California.

Within the last 18 months Unilever has sold off several big brands including its Wish-Bone salad dressing ($580- million), Skippy peanut butter ($700-million) and its European meat business for an undisclosed amount.

In 2011, the Japan-based firm, Mizkan, bought a U.S. processor of jalapeño peppers and in 2005 bought Holland House, which sells cooking wines and vinegars. Mizkan’s chairman and chief executive Kazuhide Nakano calls the move an “important milestone in our global expansion strategy.”

The deal is expected to close sometime in June.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.