Friday, June 1, 2012

Smart Balance acquiring Udi's


Smart Balance Inc. yesterday announced an agreement to acquire Udi's Healthy Foods. This comes about 10 months after Smart Balance acquired Glutino Food Group.
As a business writer, I can always see the logic in a merger and I normally don't take mergers personally. But as a gluten-free writer and eater, this deal worries me. I think it's a lot better for us if there are more companies competing to put out better gluten-free products.
Businesses always talk about "synergies" after a merger, which means they're going to find a way to cut costs by eliminating overlapping operations. So I worry that this merger reduces the variety of gluten-free products out there.
My personal opinion is that Udi's bread products are better than Glutino, so I'm particularly hoping that the different Udi's products (bread, buns, bagels) continue to be produced after the companies are merged together.
We'll see what happens.

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