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Food Supplier Mama’s Creations Turns to Dealmaking to Fuel Growth
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Good morning, CFOs. Mama’s Creations lands on a deal after months of searching for the right target; OpenAI lets users buy stuff directly through ChatGPT; plus, President Trump targets China’s tech sector.
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Mama's Creations, whose brands include Mama Mancini's, sees dealmaking as the key to hitting its goal of $1 billion in revenue by 2030. PHOTO: MAMA’S CREATIONS
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When I checked in with Mama’s Creations Chief Financial Officer Anthony Gruber in recent quarters, he often mentioned the company’s quest to find the right deal. This month, the food supplier that delivers to giant retailers like Costco Wholesale and Walmart completed one that brings the potential for more customers and the ability to make meatballs and other items faster and at a lower cost.
While companies in the food and beverage space are breaking up, Mama’s sees dealmaking as the key to hitting its goal of $1 billion in revenue by 2030. The company has been on the lookout for potential targets, but a challenging market and the splintered fresh food space made it hard to find the right ones, according to Gruber.
“It’s so fragmented in this business that we were having difficulty finding some of those [deals] that are meaningful to us,” Gruber said. Smaller businesses are less appealing as the company grows and looks for acquisitions that meaningfully add revenue and sales, he said. “But we want to be the one-stop shop.”
A $17.5 million deal to buy ready-to-eat meal manufacturer Crown I Enterprises from food service distributor Sysco is a step in that direction, he said, noting that an opening surfaced between six and nine months ago to pursue it. The tie-up includes Crown’s 42,000-square-foot facility in Bay Shore, N.Y.
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Content from our sponsor: Deloitte
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HPE CFO Marie Myers: ‘AI Is a Massive Opportunity for Finance’
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Marie Myers, CFO at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, shares her perspectives on piloting generative AI with agents in operations and investor relations, measuring return on investment, and keys to a successful integration. Read More
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📆 Earnings:
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Lamb Weston Holdings
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Nike
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Paychex
📈 Economic Indicators
S&P Cotality releases its Case-Shiller National Home Price Index for July.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.
The Conference Board releases its Consumer Confidence Index for September.
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What Else Matters to CFOs
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Shoppers will be able to buy from merchants on Etsy and Shopify through ChatGPT. PHOTO: DADO RUVIC/REUTERS
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OpenAI is letting ChatGPT users buy things through its popular artificial intelligence chatbot, all without leaving the confines of its platform.
The San Francisco-based AI company said Monday that U.S.-based ChatGPT users will be able to buy goods from online marketplace Etsy’s domestic sellers, as well as some merchants on Shopify’s e-commerce platform. The service, called Instant Checkout, currently only supports single-item purchases.
OpenAI also unveiled an open-source technical standard for merchants to build integrations with ChatGPT, called Agentic Commerce Protocol, which the company hopes will draw more merchants onto its chatbot platform. The protocol allows merchants to make their products shoppable inside ChatGPT.
Amazon and Walmart, the nation’s two largest digital retailers, aren’t currently using the protocol, OpenAI said.
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“I don’t think that companies are ready day one to put full compliance measures into place, because its impact on their supply chains could be massive.”
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—Opher Shweiki, former chief counsel at the Bureau of Industry and Security who is now a partner at law firm Akin Gump, as the Trump administration targets China’s tech sector by expanding the trade blacklist
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Stellantis, the Netherlands-based automaker behind brands including Dodge, Jeep and Fiat, appointed Joao Laranjo as its new CFO, effective immediately, succeeding Doug Ostermann, who has resigned for personal reasons, the company said Monday. Laranjo joined Fiat Chrysler Automobiles—the automotive group formed by the merger of Fiat and Chrysler—in 2009 as chief accounting officer for Latin America, rising to chief financial officer for the region. He later became CFO of Stellantis North America in 2017 before leaving to join Goodyear as vice president of finance. He rejoined Stellantis earlier this
year as chief financial officer of Stellantis North America.
—Dominic Chopping contributed to today’s Ledger.
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Where senior finance leaders confront today’s expanding remit. Connect on capital, regulation, technology, and talent — and lead with clarity.
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Content From Our Sponsor: DELOITTE
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New Attitudes Toward Corporate Crypto Use
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CFOs are shifting their attitudes and approaches to using cryptocurrency in operations and as investments. Read about what’s happening in the latest CFO insights here
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The Wall Street Journal's CFO Journal offers corporate leaders and professionals CFO analysis, advice and commentary to make informed decisions. We cover topics including corporate tax, accounting, regulation, capital markets, management and strategy. Follow us on X @WSJCFO. The WSJ CFO Journal Team comprises reporters Kristin Broughton, Mark Maurer and Jennifer Williams, and Bureau Chief Walden Siew. You can reach us by replying to any newsletter, or email Walden at walden.siew@wsj.com.
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