Conagra Brands, Inc.
Acquisitions
5
Major Deals Covered
$17.7B
Disclosed Deal Value
Conagra Brands's largest disclosed acquisition here is Pinnacle Foods for $10.9B in 2018. This page covers 5 major deals from 1980 to 2018, each with its price where disclosed and the reason behind it.
| Company | Year | Price | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banquet Foods | 1980 | Undisclosed | Moved ConAgra into frozen meals and value-oriented convenience food. |
| Beatrice Foods | 1990 | Undisclosed | Added a large stable of consumer brands. |
| Ralcorp Holdings | 2013 | $6.8B | Added scale in private-label (store brand) packaged foods; about $5 billion in equity plus assumed debt. |
| Angie's Artisan Treats (BOOMCHICKAPOP) | 2017 | Undisclosed | Added a ready-to-eat popcorn brand in better-for-you snacking. |
| Pinnacle Foods | 2018 | $10.9B | Added Birds Eye, Duncan Hines, Vlasic, Wish-Bone, Gardein, and other brands, building scale in frozen and pantry foods. |
2018
$10.9B
Added Birds Eye, Duncan Hines, Vlasic, Wish-Bone, Gardein, and other brands, building scale in frozen and pantry foods.
Roughly $10.9 billion including debt; made Conagra one of the largest U.S. frozen-food companies.
Pinnacle brands are central to Conagra's portfolio, though the deal's debt still shapes capital allocation, including the 2026 dividend cut.
2017
Added a ready-to-eat popcorn brand in better-for-you snacking.
Expanded Conagra's snack portfolio alongside Orville Redenbacher's.
BOOMCHICKAPOP remains a Conagra snack brand; the price was not disclosed.
2013
$6.8B
Added scale in private-label (store brand) packaged foods; about $5 billion in equity plus assumed debt.
The deal underperformed and added complexity.
Conagra sold the private-label business, Conagra Foods Private Brands, to TreeHouse Foods in 2016 for about $2.7 billion.
1990
Added a large stable of consumer brands.
Brought Hunt's, Orville Redenbacher's, Swiss Miss, Reddi-wip, and other brands into ConAgra.
Many Beatrice-era brands are still in the Conagra portfolio.
1980
Moved ConAgra into frozen meals and value-oriented convenience food.
Banquet became a core frozen-food brand.
Banquet remains part of Conagra's frozen portfolio.
Under CEO John Brase, Conagra's stated priorities are restoring margins, increasing investment behind brands and supply chain, reducing complexity, and rebalancing capital allocation toward debt reduction, which is why the dividend was cut. On the product side, it focuses on frozen meals and vegetables, protein-rich snacks such as Slim Jim, Duke's, and Fatty meat sticks, and seeds such as David and BIGS. It keeps pruning slower brands, including the 2025 sale of Chef Boyardee to Hometown Food Company for about $600 million.
Conagra is a branded consumer packaged goods company. It owns the brands, runs a North American manufacturing and cold-chain network, and sells finished products mainly to retailers such as Walmart, which has historically been its largest customer at roughly a quarter of net sales. Revenue depends on volume times price/mix: in fiscal 2026 organic net sales fell 0.4%, and in Q1 fiscal 2027 organic sales fell 1.1% as a 2.1% volume decline outweighed 1.0% positive price/mix. Profit depends on productivity savings offsetting inflation in inputs such as beef, steel cans, packaging, and logistics. Much of management's effort goes into modernizing older brands with new recipes, protein-forward lines, and air-fryer formats, while selling brands that no longer fit, such as Chef Boyardee in 2025.
The acquisition of Pinnacle Foods in October 2018 for $10.9 billion ($8.1 billion cash and stock plus debt assumption) was the largest acquisition in Conagra's history, adding Birds Eye, Duncan Hines, Vlasic, Gardein, Wish-Bone, Mrs. Paul's, and Udi's to create an $11B+ packaged food leader.
In 1990, ConAgra acquired Beatrice Company for $1.34 billion, bringing a notable stable of consumer staples into the company: Hunt's tomato products, Wesson oil, Peter Pan peanut butter, Reddi-wip whipped cream, Orville Redenbacher's popcorn, and Swiss Miss cocoa.
In August 2000, ConAgra acquired International Home Foods for $2.9 billion, adding Chef Boyardee canned pastas, PAM cooking spray, Gulden's mustard, and Bumble Bee seafood (later divested), making ConAgra a dominant player in shelf-stable grocery.
In 2017, Conagra acquired Thanasi Foods, makers of Duke's Smoked Meats and BIGS Seeds, accelerating Conagra's high-margin snacking strategy by adding craft artisan jerky, smoked sausages, and premium flavored sunflower seeds alongside Slim Jim.
In late 2017, Conagra acquired Angie's Artisan Treats (makers of Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP ready-to-eat popcorn) for $250 million, expanding Conagra's presence in the fast-growing premium, better-for-you snack category.
In 2012, ConAgra acquired private-label giant Ralcorp Holdings for $5.0 billion. However, private-label margins lagged, leading new then-CEO Sean Connolly to sell the private-label operations to TreeHouse Foods for $2.7 billion in 2016 to refocus 100% on high-margin branded products.
In May 2015, Conagra acquired Blake's All Natural Foods, a family-owned maker of organic, all-natural frozen pot pies, casseroles, and meals, expanding Conagra's reach into natural and specialty grocery channels.
Conagra's M&A strategy is to actively prune non-core or commoditized assets (having divested Wesson oil, Peter Pan peanut butter, and Hebrew National kosher deli plants) while pursuing high-margin bolt-on acquisitions in snacking, frozen meals, and better-for-you foods.
In 2018, Conagra executed a massive $10.9 billion acquisition of Pinnacle Foods (owner of Birds Eye, Vlasic, and Duncan Hines), aggressively expanding their total domination of the frozen food and snack aisles.
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