McCormick & Company

Acquisitions

McCormick acquired San Francisco-based coffee, spice and extract house A. Schilling & Company in 1947, enabling McCormick to begin coast-to-coast distribution in the U.S.^[9] McCormick continued to use the Schilling name for its Western division until the 1990s, with the last product containers marked Schilling produced in 2002.

Ben-Hur Products, a similar California-based company, was acquired in 1953, and Canada's largest spice firm, Gorman Eckert & Co. Ltd. of London, Ontario, was acquired in 1959. Gilroy Foods of Gilroy, California became a wholly owned subsidiary in 1961. Other acquisitions included Baker Extract Co. in 1962, Cake Mate cake decorating in 1967, Childers Foods (later part of Golden West Foods) in 1968, and Tubed Products, an Easthampton, Massachusetts contract food packer and producer of plastic tubes, also in 1968. Charles P. McCormick retired in 1969 and was named Chairman Emeritus and died the following year of a heart attack.^[10]

McCormick acquired Golden West Foods, a frozen foods manufacturer and distributor in Gilroy, California, in 1973 and entered that field under the Schilling brand label. The McCormick (east) and Schilling (west) retail units were consolidated to form a Grocery Products Division in 1975 with its headquarters in Baltimore. Additional acquisitions included All Portions in 1975, TV Time Foods of Chicago in 1976, Astro Foods of San Rafael, California in 1977, and Han-Dee Pak of Atlanta in 1979.

In October 1979, Swiss pharmaceutical firm, Sandoz, Ltd., announced its intention of purchasing the company.^[11] McCormick sued Sandoz in May 1980 and by September Sandoz agreed to relinquish its efforts to purchase McCormick and sold the shares that it acquired in its attempt to purchase the company.

Setco, a plastic bottles producer in Culver City, California, and Stange, a specialty flavorings and colorings company of Chicago, were purchased as subsidiaries in 1981. The company acquired Paterson Jenks, a publicly held United Kingdom corporation, in 1984, and Schwartz, the largest British spice line. Other acquisitions included Armanino Farms, the world's largest grower and processor of chives, from Armanino & Son, Inc., of San Francisco in 1986; and three California companies in 1987: Gentry Foods of Gilroy, Parsley Patch of Windsor, and The Herb Farm of Encinitas.

McCormick purchased an interest in the Old Bay seasoning brand in 1990, which was regionally famous for its use in preparing and steaming the local seafood delicacy of the Chesapeake Bay blue crabs and acquired Mojave Foods Corporation of Los Angeles in 1991, and the consumer products business of Golden Dipt Company in 1993. McCormick's 1994 acquisitions included Grupo Pesa of Mexico, Tuko Oy of Finland, Butto of Switzerland, and Minipack of Southampton, United Kingdom. Chairman Emeritus Charles P. McCormick Jr. was re-elected chairman in 1994. The company sold Golden West Foods in 1995 and Minipack of Southampton in 1996. Also sold in 1996 were Gilroy Foods and Gilroy Energy, as well as Giza National Dehydration of Cairo, Egypt. McCormick Canada acquired the French's dry seasoning line in 1997.^[12]

The company acquired Ducros of France in 2000, later renamed McCormick France. In 2003, McCormick was added to the Standard & Poor's 500 Index; acquired UniqSauces of the UK and Zatarain's of Louisiana; and sold its packaging businesses, Setco and Tubed Products, as well as its Jenks brokerage business assets. The company acquired C.M. van Sillevoldt B.V. of the Netherlands in 2004 and Epicurean International (renamed Simply Asia Foods) in 2006, with its Thai Kitchen and Simply Asia brands. In 2007, the company started a new advertising campaign to encourage people to dispose of older packages of spices, by pointing out that any of their packages that list their address as "Baltimore, MD 21202" are over 15 years old.^[13][14][15] In 2008, McCormick acquired Billy Bee Honey Products of Canada, and the Lawry's brand of seasonings and marinades (the biggest acquisition in company history).^[16] To gain FTC approval for the purchase of Lawry's, McCormick agreed to sell its Season-All business to Morton Salt.^[17][18]

In 2011, the company acquired Kitchen Basics, an Ohio-based brand of shelf-stable liquid stock, for $38 million.^[19] During that year, it also acquired Kamis S.A., a privately held Polish company with leading brands in spices, seasonings, mustards and other flavor products in Poland for $291 million.^[20] It also bought an 85% stake in Kohinoor Speciality Foods India for $115 million, a joint venture with India-based Kohinoor Foods Ltd to market and sell basmati and ready-to-eat food products in India.^[21]

In mid-2013, the company completed its acquisition of Wuhan Asia-Pacific Condiments Co. Ltd. (WAPC), a seasoning manufacturer in the central region of China with the Daqiao and ChuShiLe buillon products.^[22]

In December 2015, McCormick announced that Lawrence E. Kurzius, head of global operations, would become CEO effective February 2016. Kurzius was a leader at McCormick for 12 years before the announcement and previously held positions at Uncle Ben's, Mars Inc., and the Quaker Oats Co.^[23]

The company dropped its bid to acquire Premier Foods in April 2016 after determining that Premier's asking price wouldn't benefit shareholders.^[24]

Late in 2016, the company acquired Enrico Giotti SpA, a private Italian flavorings company, in a $127 million deal.^[3]

In 2017, McCormick purchased Reckitt Benckiser’s Food Division (“RB Foods”) which is the largest acquisition in the company's history.^[25] The addition of French's and Frank's RedHot to McCormick's global portfolio represent the second and third largest brands, respectively, behind the McCormick brand.