Earlier this month, HGS BioScience (backed by Paine Schwartz Partners) announced the acquisition of NutriAg Ltd., which is a Toronto-based bionutritional company.
“This acquisition will bring scale and even more relevancy in distribution because we’ll be coming in with a bigger portfolio,” says Mike Steffeck, CEO of HGS BioScience. “There are so many suppliers–it’s a very fragmented segment. Retailers simply like working with bigger scale partners with more product depth and more R&D.”
Steffeck explains the new company builds on HGS’s humic acid-based products with NutriAg’s bionutritional product portfolio, which will result in one of the most complete product platforms spanning humics, fulvics, bionutritionals, carbohydrate chelation, amino acids, plant and seaweed extracts, and microbial technologies.
Proprietary brands include NutriAg’s PolyAldoCarbosate (PAC) platform and HGS’s HumiK ONE and GrowPlex brands. Steffeck also highlights the company’s sales include private label custom products developed with and for retail partners.
“We want to work with the customers how they want to work with us,” he says.
Steffeck highlights how the company now has 10 manufacturing sites across North America to be a strategic partner and technical supplier.
Building the business bigger has been a theme for HGS as it has grown and expanded with a series of acquisitions in the past three years. This acquisition of NutriAg continues to build a stronger geographic footprint for the company in North America as well as with its international business in markets such as South America and southeast Asia.
In the company’s announcement NutriAg President and CEO Martin Bloomberg added: “Joining HGS is the next chapter for NutriAg. Our combined capabilities make us the partner of choice for both retailers and farmers. Retailers gain one trusted source – a complete product portfolio and a market-leading innovation engine. Farmers gain proven, field-tested products that drive resilience, productivity, and profitability.”
