Dive Brief:
- KKR is buying an 18% stake in Fujian Sunner Development Co., the largest chicken breeder and processor in China, for $400 million.
- The move comes a little more than two months after the private equity fund picked up a majority stake in China's COFCO, a pork processor.
- Fujian Sunner is a vertically integrated producer, with operations across the production cycle. Such companies, while rare in China, are seen as offering better guarantees of food safety.
Dive Insight:
China's appetite for meat seems insatiable. And Chinese consumers' fears related to food safety are both justified and growing. That's an opportunity for companies like Tyson, which has invested heavily in poultry production and processing in China and investors like KKR, which can funnel the best food-safety practices to companies in their portfolios.