Plant-based foods firm buying into organic juice market

A Vancouver company dialing up its presence in Canada’s plant-based foods market is set to buy its way into the organic juice business.

Pangea Natural Foods recently announced plans to buy another Vancouver firm, fruit and vegetable juice processor Glory Juice, in a share exchange deal.

Glory Juice operates three retail outlets in the city’s Olympic Village, Yaletown and Coal Harbour areas, making and marketing organic cold-pressed juices and nut- and seed-based “mylk” blends along with supplements and snack products such as granola and nut butter.

The juice maker, in business since 2014, bills itself as supporting local farmers “with the goal of empowering its community and reducing environmentally harmful food miles.”

The company also provides pickup and delivery options, franchising, business-to-business partnerships and co-branded or “white-label” products for retail sale. It bills its juice products as providing three pounds of organic produce per bottle.

Pangea, which launched itself in 2021 making plant-based non-GMO vegan patties, began publicly trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange last summer.

The deal for Glory Juice calls for Pangea to issue secured promissory notes to repay $1.8 million in loans to Glory Juice from certain of its shareholders, and to issue six million common shares in Pangea in exchange for all outstanding shares in Glory Juice.

Pangea didn’t give a total valuation on the deal, buts its CSE share price on the announced agreement date of April 21, at 24.5 cents per share, would put the total value of those shares at $1.47 million. Pangea’s shares closed at 17 cents in trading on May 24.

Pangea didn’t provide an expected closing date for the deal, which it said is still subject to the usual third-party, corporate and regulatory approvals. On that date, though, it would release 10 per cent of the new share issue, with the remainder to be issued in 15 per cent blocks at six-month intervals. Repayment of the promissory notes would also begin on the closing date over a 56-month period.