Investment to Accelerate Company’s Growth and Global Expansion and Drive Further Culinary Innovation
Sterling, VA and Boston, MA – June 6, 2022 – Cuisine Solutions Inc., the global leader and pioneer in sous vide premium foods, today announced a $250 million investment from Bain Capital to accelerate its growth and global expansion. The minority investment will further establish Cuisine Solutions’ authority in the sous vide category, provide additional resources to support accelerated product innovation, and expand its business domestically and internationally as well as the company’s global manufacturing footprint beyond the United States, France, and Thailand.
Cuisine Solutions will continue to operate under the leadership of the existing management team, led by Chief Executive Officer, Felipe Hasselmann, and Chairman, Stanislas Vilgrain, who remain significant owners in the business, in addition to the Vilgrain family retaining a controlling interest.
Headquartered in Sterling, Virginia, Cuisine Solutions is the largest sous vide company in the world and a leading culinary innovation partner, with locations in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Recognized by the world’s top chefs and kitchens, the company is the production and thought leader on the innovative slow-cooking technique that it pioneered, perfected, and popularized. Cuisine Solutions provides prepared sous vide food products to food service, on-board, military, and retail customers worldwide including Amtrak, Costco, Dunkin’, Hilton Hotels & Resorts, Panera, and Starbucks among many other industry leaders.
“Our future, while bright before this strategic partnership, is now even more exciting as we see substantial runway to drive growth and expansion through continued innovation across multiple product categories,” said Hasselmann. “We are proud to be the leader in the art and science of sous vide, which is the answer to so many of the challenges our clients face inside and outside of the kitchen. This investment will enable us to rapidly scale our worldwide manufacturing infrastructure, business partnerships, and fortify our supply chain, thereby creating additional scale to meet the growing needs of the global partners who rely on our products every day across tens of thousands of locations.”
“My vision when founding Cuisine Solutions was to be the best innovator and food producer in our space, develop best-in-class partnerships, and have our reputation speak for itself through our quality, scale, and innovation,” said Vilgrain. “To have a world-class investment firm of Bain Capital’s caliber support our vision speaks to the success of our original mission and to the exciting future of our industry. I am extremely proud of our accomplishments from our humble start in 1990 to today and am looking forward to building together with Bain Capital a leading, innovative food company of the future.”
“Stanislas, Felipe, and the management team have done an outstanding job building Cuisine Solutions into a clear leader in the fast-growing sous vide market that is recognized by many of the world’s top chefs. The company’s unique range of culinary innovations offer higher quality and consistency, better food safety, and lower costs, which is a win-win for their customers in the current macroeconomic environment,” said Cristian Jitianu, a Managing Director at Bain Capital. “We are excited to partner with Cuisine Solutions and support the management team’s growth plans while further enhancing the value proposition as the preferred culinary innovation partner to blue-chip restaurant, retail, travel, and hospitality brands,” added Jeffrey Chung, a Director at Bain Capital.
Bain Capital has a long history of partnering with companies in the consumer, retail, and restaurant industries to accelerate growth. The firm’s restaurant, food service, and grocery-related investments have included Advantage Solutions (NASDAQ: ADV), Bloomin’ Brands (NASDAQ: BLMN), Brakes Group Food Distribution, Burger King (NYSE: QSR), Dessert Holdings, Dunkin’ Brands Inc., Domino’s Pizza (NYSE: DPZ), Gail’s Bakery, Retail Zoo, Skylark Restaurants, and Valeo Foods.
The transaction is expected to close during the second quarter of 2022 and is subject to customary closing conditions.
Moelis & Company LLC acted as exclusive financial advisor and sole placement agent and McDermott Will & Emery acted as legal advisor to Cuisine Solutions in connection with the transaction. BofA Securities served as financial advisor and Kirkland and Ellis served as legal advisor to Bain Capital
About Cuisine Solutions
Led by an international team of award-winning chefs, Cuisine Solutions is the world’s leading manufacturer of sous vide products — the innovative, precise slow-cooking technique the Company pioneered, perfected, and popularized decades ago. Renowned for its innovation, the Company has launched sous vide products across a wide spectrum of categories – including proteins, sauces, grain and plant-based products, and its hugely popular egg bites. Their pasteurized sous vide items offer 18 months shelf life frozen, six days when defrosted, and can be oven finished in mere minutes. This allows food service and home cooks to save time, simplify the complexity of any supply chain challenges, and is a perfect solution to significantly reduce waste and labor costs. Headquartered in Sterling, Virginia, Cuisine Solutions services more than 22,000 restaurants and 6,000 retailers, as well as major airlines and hotels. For more information, visit www.cuisinesolutions.com.
About Sous Vide
Sous vide – French for “under-vacuum” – is an innovative cooking technique in which food is vacuum sealed and heated in water until cooked to perfection. In 1971, Dr. Bruno Goussault (who would later become Chief Scientist at Cuisine Solutions) developed sous vide as a way of improving the texture and flavor, while maintaining the natural integrity of cooked foods. Dr. Goussault discovered that the sous vide approach – whereby food is slowly cooked at slightly-lower-than-usual temperature in specially designed, vacuum sealed pouches – resulted in notable flavor enhancement and a reduction in food shrinkage compared to conventional cooking methods. Cuisine Solutions’ heritage in sous vide – and its continuous innovation in the science – has allowed the Company to consistently deliver restaurant-quality products that are trusted and favored by top chefs and discerning foodies around the world.
About Bain Capital
Bain Capital, LP is one of the world’s leading private multi-asset alternative investment firms that creates lasting impact for our investors, teams, businesses, and the communities in which we live. Since our founding in 1984, we’ve applied our insight and experience to organically expand into numerous asset classes including private equity, credit, public equity, venture capital, real estate and other strategic areas of focus. The firm has offices on four continents, more than 1,300 employees and approximately $160 billion in assets under management. To learn more, visit www.baincapital.com.
