The BellRing Brands Story
While BellRing Brands is no longer a part of the Post Holdings portfolio, the background and history of the connection between these two companies is a powerful story.
BellRing Brands, now a $1B+ company, manages Premier Nutrition Company and Dymatize Enterprises in the US, as well as Active Nutrition International, a European operating subsidiary. The business markets and sells Premier Protein, Dymatize and PowerBar products. The company’s ready-to-drink (RTD) protein shakes, other RTD beverages and powders are available globally in club, food, drug and mass, e-commerce, specialty and convenience channels.
In 2013, seeing potential growth in the global convenient nutrition category, Post Holdings invested in the category by first acquiring Premier Nutrition Corporation. Post continued to make strategic acquisitions in the category in 2014, first with the acquisition of Dymatize, a brand marketed to those serious about sports nutrition. Since that time, Dymatize has grown its appeal to a broader sports nutrition audience and has expanded distribution beyond traditional sports-focused points of sale to include e-commerce and food and mass outlets.
Also in 2014, Post acquired the PowerBar brand. At the time of acquisition, PowerBar had over-expanded its product portfolio, stalling growth. Post streamlined PowerBar SKUs, appropriately sized the business and opened up the value of the brand by introducing it in European markets.
Post formed these three synergistic businesses—Premier Nutrition, Dymatize and PowerBar— into the Active Nutrition business unit of Post. Their broad portfolio of brands address the various consumer need states of the category, including everyday nutrition, sports nutrition, adult nutrition and weight management. The combined range provided the Active Nutrition business unit access to many channels of sales and distribution and provided the opportunity to expand the brands globally.
As the Active Nutrition business unit grew, with the Premier Protein brand leading the portfolio averaging annual sales growth in excess of 20 percent year over year from fiscal 2014 to fiscal 2019, plans were made to maximize the value of the business unit by separating it into its own public company through an initial public offering. In October 2019, BellRing’s IPO took place, creating a notable stand-alone public company positioned to succeed in the growing convenient nutrition category.
Post retained ownership of a substantial portion of BellRing after the 2019 IPO and then strategically divested its interest in BellRing in increments, starting with the spin-off of 80.1% of Post’s interest in BellRing to shareholders of Post, continuing to unlock the value within. In November 2022, Post divested the remainder of its shares of BellRing.
Today, a mutually beneficial relationship continues between Post Holdings and BellRing. Robert V. Vitale, President and CEO of Post Holdings, continues to serve as the Executive Chairman of BellRing’s Board of Directors. Also, the Post Holdings team provides certain services (including finance, internal audit, treasury, IT support, insurance and tax) to BellRing under a master services agreement. Post is building a manufacturing facility in Ohio that will produce Premier Protein drinks for BellRing, which is expected to be operational in 2023.
Visit BellRing’s website to learn more about the company.