Florida Food Products (“FFP”) announced that it will acquire Comax Manufacturing Corp (“Comax”), a provider of clean label flavor solutions focused on the beverage & nutrition markets. Under the stewardship of the Calabretta family, Comax has grown to become one of the largest providers of natural flavors in the U.S. since its founding in 1977. Comax formulates natural ingredients that replace synthetic flavors and maintains a portfolio of nearly 1,000 natural flavor SKUs. As part of the FFP family, Comax will continue to operate its Melville, NY manufacturing facility, and develop industry leading formulations in its Marlton, NJ R&D facility. The Calabretta family will maintain an equity position in the combined business.   

FFP’s latest innovations include VegStable Plus, a natural phosphate alternative for the meat industry, and a line of fermented vegetable juices that provides novel flavor and taste enhancement delivery to a wide variety of end applications, most notably plant-based foods. Earlier this year, Ardian and MidOcean announced a partnership to accelerate FFP’s strategic roadmap through increased investment in R&D and the completion of strategic acquisitions. 

“We are thrilled to welcome Comax to the FFP family, and to partner with the Calabretta family.  Comax has built an impressive portfolio of natural flavors, which we intend to augment with FFP’s industry leading extraction, drying, and fermentation capabilities,” said FFP’s CEO Jim Holdrieth. “Our acquisition of Comax represents our first major investment of the Ardian and MidOcean partnership and accelerates our objective of becoming the industry’s largest independent provider of natural ingredients.”

Peter Calabretta Jr., Comax’s CEO stated, “Comax is the result of 40+ years of dedication to our craft and the hard work of hundreds of our colleagues. We are incredibly proud of the business that we have built and our confident that the Comax legacy will live on as part of the FFP family. We are excited to partner with the FFP, Ardian, and MidOcean teams, who share our belief that natural ingredients provide consumers with healthier options while offering our customers high-quality alternatives to traditional, synthetic ingredients. This partnership gives Comax access to new technologies, ingredients, and distribution that will accelerate the existing Comax business and provide more solutions and capabilities for our valued customers.”