Plant-based private equity firm Ahimsa Companies acquired New York-based company Blackbird Foods for an undisclosed amount of money on Feb. 17 as the brand seeks to bolster its presence in the frozen aisle through product collaboration and retail expansion.
Founded in 2020, Blackbird offers frozen New York-style pizzas, seitan-wings and four flavors of seitan, and previously collaborated with Beyond Meat and plant-based chicken brand Daring on co-branded pizza launches.
Boosting collaboration and scaling up operations were the main reasons that Blackbird agreed to the acquisition, noted brand CEO and Co-founder Emanuel Storch. Previously, Ahimsa acquired plant-based food company Wicked Kitchen and plant-based chicken brand Simulate, Storch added.
“We were able to work with these other like-minded brands to really gain more traction and gain more distribution in this space and piggyback off of each other’s followings and fans and customer base as well, and so this acquisition will only allow us to further that collaboration,” he elaborated.
Blackbird leans on Ahimsa’s expertise to fuel the brand’s next stage
Despite the challenges of the plant-based category, Blackbird grew revenues by 20% in 2024 and increased its retail presence to 3,500 locations as well as expanded its foodservice operations in the Northeast in restaurants and California with its school lunch program.
Now, Blackbird is focusing on retail growth and streamlining operations with Ahimsa’s “shared-services model,” where manufacturing and retail expertise is exchanged across the three sister brands, Storch explained. Simulate already is supporting Blackbird with logistics, which were a “huge time suck” for the pizza brand, he added.
“We are able to combine a lot of our operations and logistics and warehousing. All of those things to help us become self-sustaining and help us grow further and compete in this retail space, whereas everyone knows it is extremely cash intensive to play in,” he emphasized.
Additionally, Blackbird plans to leverage Ahimsa’s expertise to grow its retail footprint, Storch said.
“We are able to collaborate with the sales teams - with other brands - and really put our heads and our resources together to leverage our relationships and get into more retailers. We are still not in every region of Whole Foods. We are not in Kroger, yet. We are in 300 Target stores, but there are 2,200 total Target stores. So, we are really excited for the next phase of trying to expand,” Storch said.
Blackbird readies launch of new product at Expo West
Blackbird is preparing to launch a four-pack of individual pizzas, which will be demoed at the upcoming Natural Products Expo West, Storch said. Blackbird will be exhibiting in booth #N744 at Expo West.
“We are excited to get customer feedback at the show. We always get a ton of interest at our booth and really a ton of feedback. We really use the feedback we get from buyers and consumers at Expo West to help iterate our products,” Storch said.
Blackbird also is eyeing areas within the frozen aisle in which to expand, Storch noted. Frozen products account for roughly 70% of the alternative meat category, Circana shared in a report.
“The customer goes to the grocery store and what they see is maybe three frozen aisles of food, but that those aisles are actually split into a bunch of different categories,” he said. “There is a lot of opportunity for us to expand our brand in these subcategories of the frozen space, and that is what we are looking at next.”
