Empresas Polar, the family-owned Venezuelan food and beverage giant, has bought Ricos Products Co., the San Antonio company credited with inventing stadium nachos, ending more than a century of ownership by the Liberto family.
The purchase was made through Alimentos Polar International Inc., Empresas Polar’s U.S. subsidiary, and announced Oct. 30. The companies didn’t disclose terms. Ricos will keep its headquarters in San Antonio and its existing management team, led by Chief Executive Tony Liberto, whose father developed the shelf-stable nacho cheese sauce at the heart of the business, as HERE San Antonio reported.
From a corner grocery to 80 countries
Ricos traces its roots to a grocery store the Liberto family opened in San Antonio in 1909. In 1976 it introduced concession nachos, a sturdier chip paired with warm cheese sauce, at a Texas ballpark, and the snack spread to arenas, movie theaters and festivals worldwide. The company now sells cheese sauce, tortilla chips, popcorn and other snacks in more than 80 countries and runs a manufacturing plant in Dallas.
Polar’s U.S. push
For Empresas Polar, founded in Caracas in 1941 as a brewery and now run by the third generation of the Mendoza family, the deal extends a U.S. expansion that began in 2010 with a beer and malt-beverage plant in Florida and continued in 2014 with a grain and cereal plant in Greenville, Texas, that supports its Harina P.A.N. corn-flour brand. Chief Executive Lorenzo Mendoza said the company intends to invest in Ricos’s growth and take its products to more consumers while preserving its local roots.
BofA Securities was Ricos’s financial adviser and Norton Rose Fulbright its legal counsel. Balandra Capital and Skadden advised Empresas Polar. The deal adds to a run of foreign buyers picking up long-established, family-owned American food brands. More San Antonio deal coverage is on the HERE San Antonio business page.
