Food FYI: Spam and peanut butter sandwich? Hormel buys Skippy

Skippy, meet Spam. Hormel Foods, the maker of Spam canned ham, is buying the brand Skippy peanut butter from consumer products giant Unilever for about $700 million.

The move comes as Austin, Minn.-based Hormel is beefing up (heh) its portfolio of meats such as Farmer John sausage and Jennie-O turkey and boosting its presence overseas, according to a Los Angeles Times report.

The sale includes Skippy factories in Little Rock, Ark., and Shandong Province in China, CNN says.

Hormel Chief Executive Jeffrey M. Ettinger told analysts in a conference call that he expected Skippy to become one of the company’s biggest brands.

It’s the second-largest peanut butter brand in the U.S., behind J.M. Smucker-owned Jif, and the top peanut butter in China. Hormel says the peanut butter industry is valued at $2 billion. Skippy, which was launched in 1932, sells 11 varieties of peanut butter in more than 30 other countries.

Hormel said it expects Skippy to bring in annual sales of $370 million, nearly $100 million of that from overseas.

Unilever has well-known brands such as Dove soap and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream but has been selling some brands -- such as P.F. Chang’s and Bertolli frozen meals -- to concentrate on emerging markets, CNN said.

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