Who Owns Kerr Concentrates?

Kerr Concentrates was founded in 1985 in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, a region with abundant fruit and vegetable production that provides the raw material base for concentrate and puree manufacturing. The company was established to serve the growing demand from food and beverage manufacturers for natural, minimally processed fruit and vegetable ingredients that could replace synthetic flavors, colors, and sweeteners.

The Pacific Northwest's agricultural output, including apples, pears, cherries, berries, and a range of vegetables, provided Kerr Concentrates with access to high-quality raw materials for its processing operations. The company developed expertise in concentrating and pureeing fruits and vegetables while preserving their natural flavor profiles, color, and nutritional properties, which are the key quality attributes that food manufacturers seek in clean-label ingredients.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Kerr Concentrates expanded its customer base among food and beverage manufacturers seeking natural ingredient solutions. The company's products found applications in beverages, dairy products, baked goods, sauces, condiments, and other food categories where fruit and vegetable ingredients provide flavor, color, and nutritional value.

The clean-label trend, which gained significant momentum through the 2000s and 2010s as consumers increasingly sought food products with recognizable, natural ingredients, was a major tailwind for Kerr Concentrates' business. Food manufacturers reformulating products to remove artificial ingredients turned to natural fruit and vegetable concentrates and purees as replacements, expanding the addressable market for Kerr's products.

By the time of the Ingredion acquisition in 2015, Kerr Concentrates had annual revenues of approximately $75 million and employed approximately 82 people. The company's relatively small size belied its strategic value as a supplier of natural ingredients with established customer relationships and processing expertise in a geographically advantaged location.

In July 2015, Ingredion Incorporated acquired Kerr Concentrates for $100 million in cash, simultaneously with its acquisition of Penford Corporation. The dual acquisitions in July 2015 represented a significant acceleration of Ingredion's specialty ingredients strategy. Ingredion's rationale for the Kerr acquisition was to add natural fruit and vegetable concentrates and purees to its portfolio, complementing its existing starch and sweetener products with clean-label ingredients aligned with consumer trends.

Following the acquisition, Kerr Concentrates continued to operate from its Pacific Northwest base under its established brand identity. The Kerr brand carries recognition among food and beverage manufacturers in the natural ingredients market, and Ingredion has maintained it as a distinct brand within its portfolio.

Ingredion's subsequent acquisitions, including TIC Gums (2016), PureCircle (2020), and KaTech (2021), continued the specialty and natural ingredients expansion strategy that the Kerr and Penford acquisitions helped establish in 2015.