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While devouring gluten-free Udi’s bagels yesterday, our office chewed over the news that Udi’s Gluten-Free Foods had been bought by Smart Balance for $125 million. That’s big money, but Udi’s Gluten-Free Foods — founded by Udi’s, the beloved breadmaker that offers fresh-baked goodness in grocery stores and at its own half-dozen restaurants and cafes — creates seriously good bread that definitely extends the Smart Balance brand.
The price tag alone should tell you how far gluten-free has come in the past few years — and how much businesses are willing to pay for a gluten-free bread recipe that creates the taste and texture people are accustomed to from regular bread. Udi’s launched its gluten-free line in 2006 (another Colorado-based gluten-free powerhouse, Rudi’s, didn’t release a gluten-free bread until 2010, to give you some perspective), so the company has had lots of time to tweak its formula.
And the time spent has been worthwhile: When non-gluten-free consumers can try your product and think it’s yummy — and, in the case of Udi’s bagels, can’t even tell it’s gluten-free without looking at the label — well, you’ve got a winning combination on your hands.
“The Udi’s gluten-free products were developed from the same talent pool of Udi’s Foods but managed as a separate business entirely under the name Udi’s Healthy Foods LLC,” reads a statement by Etai Bar-on, the co-CEO of the company, on the sale of Udi’s Gluten-Free Foods last week. “Thus, the selling of the gluten-free business in no way affects the ongoing operations for the restaurants, bakery or catering company.”
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Good news for us. And Smart Balance, the brand that purchased the, uh, other brand, is definitely expanding its profile: At the moment, Smart Balance sells a buttery spread (perhaps what it’s best known for) as well as milk, popcorn, mayonnaise, eggs and peanut butter. Sounds like bread is just the thing to round out that catalogue — and won’t the rest of the nation be lucky to discover a treasure like Udi’s?
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