If you have a Chobani grudge and lots of dollars lying around, the organic-yogurt powerhouse Stonyfield might be calling your name. For months, mega-dairy-company Danone has been trying to close on a $10 billion merger with WhiteWave Foods, maker of the Horizon Organic and Silk brands. To speed things along, it announced today it’s agreed to dump Stonyfield — which started in 1983 and did about $370 million in revenue last year — in order to throw the Justice Department’s antitrust division a bone and (it assumes) fast-track the WhiteWave deal.
The Wall Street Journal says analysts estimate the sale could go for between $800 million and $900 million, and the consensus seems to be it “shouldn’t be hard” to find buyers willing to pay that price. Besides Horizon (America’s top organic-milk supplier) and Silk (producer of some of America’s most popular dairy alternatives), WhiteWave also owns Earthbound Farm, the country’s largest organic-salad producer prized by Michael Pollan, and a bunch of other trendy things like the Vega line of protein shakes — items Danone may be putting as much long-term hope in these days as in milk.
