Dive Brief:
- Snyder's-Lance has announced that CFO Rick Puckett, 62, will retire from his position, effective Dec. 31.
- The company said in a statement that it is conducting a nationwide search for Puckett's replacement.
- Puckett has served as executive vice president and CFO of Snyder's-Lance since the merger of Snyder's of Hanover and Lance in 2010. Prior, Puckett held the CFO role at Lance since 2006.
Dive Insight:
Puckett has overseen several major changes and deals for Snyder's-Lance over the past decade. They've included the merger that formed the present-day company, the 2012 Snack Factory acquisition, the creation of the Better For You foods division in 2014, and the purchase of Diamond Foods earlier this year.
The Diamond Foods acquisition boosted the better-for-you foods percentage of Snyder's-Lance's portfolio from 29% to 32%, but Puckett emphasized the importance of continued growth of this segment during a presentation at the BMO Capital Markets Farm to Market Conference last week. "We’re not done at 32%. We believe that could be even higher," he said.
If the company's latest earnings report is any indication, Diamond Foods and better-for-you snacks will be critical to future financial growth for Snyder's-Lance. First-quarter net revenue rose 15% to $462.8 million, which missed analysts' estimates, and excluding the Diamond Foods acquisition, net revenue dipped 0.7%.
Earlier this year, a Deutsche Bank report suggested that Snyder's-Lance itself could be an acquisition target for potential buyers like Mondelez, PepsiCo, and Kellogg.