ByHeart to acquire packaging company Cascadia Nutrition to complete end-to-end control of its product manufacturing

Photo © stock.adobe.com/ucchie79

ByHeart (New York City) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Cascadia Nutrition, an FDA-registered packaging and blending facility based in Portland, OR. A “next-generation” baby nutrition company, ByHeart says that the acquisition will further the company’s goal of diversifying and building resilient, high quality infant formula production in the U.S. by achieving complete end-to-end control and oversight of product manufacturing.

Cascadia is being acquired from the Balogh family and DPI Group, a non-profit organization dedicated to transparency and creating job opportunities for those with employment barriers. Cascadia has been packaging infant formula for international brands for the last five years ­– pending FDA registration – and the acquisition will enable the facility to begin serving the U.S. market. ByHeart will maintain the facility’s existing workforce and employ members of the Balogh family to ensure that their mission remains steadfast.

"We are very pleased to join forces with a partner who shares our vision of bringing high-quality infant formula to babies and parents everywhere, an urgency widely recognized during the current infant formula shortage. As a result of its five-year regulatory and clinical journey, ByHeart is now uniquely positioned to serve the needs of the U.S. infant formula market with the only new dedicated packaging facility, pending FDA registration," said Ashley Balogh, president of Cascadia, in a press release.

ByHeart has provided FDA a regulatory submission to complete the requirements for registering Cascadia for the U.S. infant formula market, and will begin integrating Cascadia packaging into its fully owned manufacturing supply chain with the expectation to resume supplying customers with infant formula in the year’s second quarter.

"As a company committed to parents, our goal has always been full ownership and oversight of our end-to-end manufacturing process. We managed to achieve that goal with the exception of packaging which was conducted by a reputable third-party partner while we worked towards bringing that piece in-house," explained Ron Belldegrun, CEO and co-founder. "This acquisition will enable full control over our manufacturing process so that we can deliver a product at the highest standards of quality, safety and reliability for our ByHeart families. The Cascadia acquisition represents another important step forward as we continue to expand our investments in manufacturing infrastructure, infant formula innovation, and industry-leading quality standards."