Wilsonville's Better Bean Bought By New York's Hain Celestial

WILSONVILLE, OR — Hain Celestial, a New York-based natural foods company, announced Wednesday its acquisition of Wilsonville's Better Bean Company, a local all-natural bean company that specializes in non-GMO bean products.

Marked as the first official acquisition by Hain Celestial's Cultivate Ventures — which according to the Hain's website invests in smaller portfolio brands, lifestyle brands and concepts, and incubator opportunities in high growth categories on Hain's behalf — the Better Bean purchase will give more health food-minded consumers access to Better Bean's inventory of non-GMO, vegan, and gluten free bean products.

"We expect to catapult Better Bean's growth by leveraging Hain Celestial's strength in sales, distribution, marketing and brand building, which should allow more consumers to experience Better Beans," Better Bean Founder and CEO Keith Kullberg said in a statement. "Hain Celestial's decades' long commitment to making healthier, better-for-you food more accessible complements Better Beans' mission to bring the world clean, tasty and convenient beans." (Sign up for our free daily newsletters and Breaking News Alerts for the Wilsonville Patch)

Better Bean, which was founded by Kullberg and his family in 2010, has grown into a national organization, with its products sold in stores across the country. The Hain Celestial acquisition stands to further Kullberg's mission to get healthy food into the mouths of as many people as possible.

"They bring a lot of expertise and capability from a service and sales standpoint," Hannah Kullberg, Keith's daughter, told Patch. "(Hain Celestial's) team will help Better Bean reach a wider audience."

Hannah has been in charge of most sales and marketing work for Better Bean since she got involved, she said, adding that she also handles the company's customer service. Hain Celestial, Hannah said, will augment how much time she has to spend spreading herself across various aspects of the company's outreach efforts and instead allow her to focus more on customer engagement than she'd been able to before.

Aside from sales and marketing, she said, the acquisition isn't expected to change much about how the business is run.

"We're learning as we go, but we do know we'll remain in Wilsonville and continue to make our products in Wilsonville," Hannah said, noting that the Hain's acquisition will allow Better Bean's employees to continue doing what Better Bean does best. "We want our beans to continue inspiring people to eat more beans … and (Hain Celestial) is really aligned with us on promoting a natural brand."

Better Bean's products are sold as an alternative to raw or canned beans in eight different flavored varieties, which all contain at least five grams of fiber and six grams of protein per serving in chilled deli tubs.

This short video explains it best (from the Better Bean YouTube channel):

This post was updated to include comments from Better Bean's Hannah Kullberg.

Image: jan_nijman via Pixabay.com