A leading food manufacturer throughout the United Kingdom recently acquired Shakopee-based Lettieri’s, LLC, for an undisclosed sum.
 
Dublin-based Greencore Group said the acquisition of Lettieri’s—which makes food products such as breakfast sandwiches, stuffed baguettes and breadsticks, and dough-wrapped hot dogs—will increase its “food-to-go” operations, particularly in the U.S. market.
 
“The Lettieri’s acquisition will . . . deepen our manufacturing capability and widen our product range to more fully serve the food-to-go needs of our customers in the small store channels,” Greencore CEO Patrick Coveney said in a statement.
 
Lettieri’s spokesman David Poplau told Twin Cities Business that all 130 Lettieri’s employees will continue to work for the company but that its name will change to Greencore Minneapolis. It will continue to operate out of its existing location.
 
Greencore said the Lettieri’s acquisition will “modestly” increase its earnings per share. Lettieri’s reported revenue of $36.4 million for its fiscal year, which ended March 2013. Greencore, meanwhile, reported revenue of approximately $1.6 billion for its fiscal year, which ended in September.
 
Tino Lettieri—the founder and former CEO of the company, who also played professional soccer for the Minnesota Kicks and Minnesota Strikers—announced plans for a separate venture called Café Lettieri’s when he left Lettieri’s in 2004.
 
His plan was to open 50 restaurant-cafés under the Café Lettieri’s franchise by 2010. He has since opened a food products business called Tino’s Café Pizzeria, in Shorewood.
 
Greencore, which manufactures and distributes convenience foods internationally, operates roughly 23 facilities in the United Kingdom and the United States. It employs approximately 11,000 people.