US: Potato-chip giant Utz to buy Golden Enterprises for $135M

Utz Quality Foods Inc., the family-owned Hanover, Pa.-based potato-chip and snack-food company that’s been growing like a well-fed teenager, has agreed to pay about $135 million, or $12 a share, for Golden Enterprises Inc., the publicly traded Birmingham, Ala.-based maker of Golden Flake chips and other snack products. Golden employs about 700 at plants in Birmingham and Ocala, Fla. They will join Utz’s existing workforce of 2,700, said Utz chief executive Dylan Lissette. Snacks “are a very competitive market,” he said, and “our number one goal is to remain relevant, in a geography that has expanded,” with foreign manufacturers and U.S. private-equity investors competing to purchase local U.S. brands. More