Happy Belly Food Group Inc., a leading consolidator of emerging food brands, announced Wednesday that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Smile Tiger Coffee Roasters Inc – its first acquisition in the coffee sector.
“Today is a big day for Happy Belly Food Group as we announce the 100% acquisition of our newest brand Smile Tiger to our growing list of emerging brands,” said Sean Black Chief Executive Officer of Happy Belly.
“Entering the coffee & tea beverage category is something we have been exploring for some time, so finding our entry point with Smile Tiger is a great step forward. As we continue to execute on our consolidation strategy of brands that fit the 3 P’s of People, Product and Process, we welcome the entry into a new category with so much room for sector consolidation as well as menu expansion. This is another significant achievement as it demonstrates our commitment to our shareholders to focus on value creation across our portfolio.
“Our mandate is to deliver disciplined organic growth as well as accretive M&A. We look forward to sharing detailed development plans for the brand post closing, but buying cash-flow positive brands that are debt free with positive same store sales is a low-risk plan that I want more of for our shareholders. The key here is what happens to the brand post closing in our hands. Our team continues to demonstrate how we can buy low risk cash-flow positive assets at reasonable multiples and then immediately expand the brands EBITDA. Just like we did with Heal Wellness, Lettuce Love Café, iQ Foods, Via Cibo, Rosie’s Burgers, Yolks Breakfast & Pirho.”
Black said Smile Tiger will operate as a corporate-owned retail location, catering to walk-in customers in the Kitchener region while also reaching a nationwide audience through its online offerings. These include both consumer-packaged goods (CPG) and white-label products.
A key aspect of this acquisition is Smile Tiger’s role as a coffee roaster, enabling large-scale commerce and broad market opportunities including supplying our own brands across the country. Having this market advantage in addition to delivering exceptional coffee and outstanding service, positions us to capitalize on the strong growth potential in the coffee, teas, bubble tea, energy drinks and refreshers vertical that we believe is currently disrupting the beverage category across North America, added Black.
“We are excited about expanding our coffee capabilities, not only through both additional corporate and franchised retail locations but also in exploring opportunities to provide Smile Tiger products across our existing retail locations going forward. With our diverse portfolio of breakfast, lunch, and dinner brands, Happy Belly consumes a significant amount of coffee, making this expansion a natural fit for cross selling,” noted Black.
“The opportunity to broaden the footprint of our coffee brand-both in product offerings and physical reach-represents a significant growth avenue for us in 2025 and beyond. Thankfully we have significant bench strength in the coffee category within our leadership team. John Delutis brings experience from his time at Second Cup and Tim Hortons, Gary Fung previously served as Head of Finance and Strategy for Tim Hortons, and Randall Papineau successfully led Balzac’s Coffee; so we anticipate the integration to be smooth and acceleration of the brand to be immediate “
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