Barilla Buys Goodles: How a Five-Year-Old Mac and Cheese Brand Took 7.8% of the US Shelf

I keep seeing the same ending. A small brand takes shelf from the leaders for a few years, and then somebody buys it. Goodles went from 0.8% of US mac and cheese spending to 7.8% in three years. On 2 September Barilla agreed to buy it.

What Barilla bought

Barilla Group agreed to buy Goodles on 2 September. Neither side gave a price. Goodles will run as its own brand and keep its base in Santa Cruz, California. Jen Zeszut stays on as chief executive.

Goodles started in 2020. It sells boxed mac and cheese with 14 grams of protein and 6 to 7 grams of fibre a serving. Its best known trick is a pouch of wet cheese in place of the dry powder. Gal Gadot and Jaron Varsano were among the first backers.

The share move is the whole story

Numerator tracked US spending on shelf stable mac and cheese for the year to the end of June. Goodles took 7.8% of it, against 0.8% three years earlier. That is close to ten times the share in three years.

The brand was also selling faster per store than Kraft and Annie's within three years of launch. A five year old brand was beating the two names that have owned this shelf for decades.

Shelf stable mac and cheese is a cheap and crowded aisle. Own label sits next to Kraft in most shops. A newer brand charging more has to earn every facing it gets. Goodles did that on protein, on fibre and on the cheese pouch.

The buyer had nothing to defend

Here is the part worth sitting with. Kraft Mac and Cheese belongs to Kraft Heinz. Annie's belongs to General Mills. Both watched Goodles take their shelf. Neither of them bought it. The buyer was Barilla, which had no mac and cheese business in the US to protect.

That is the pattern. A leader with share to lose treats a small rival as a price problem and answers with deals. An outsider treats the same brand as a way in and answers with a cheque. Defending a shelf and buying a shelf are different jobs, and firms rarely do both well.

What Barilla brings

Barilla is the largest pasta maker in the world and is held by the Barilla family. Guido Barilla, the chairman, said the group had watched Goodles closely for some time.

The fit is plain. Goodles has the brand and the shoppers. Barilla has plants, buyers and shelf space outside the US. Goodles sells in one country today, and that is the whole growth case.

Barilla has also been adding US capacity. Earlier this year it put $170 million into its site in Livingston County, New York. That money went on making, packing lines and warehouse space.

The price nobody will confirm

Barilla is family held, so it does not have to tell anyone what it paid. Some reports have floated a range. None of it is confirmed, so treat it as noise.

What is confirmed is more useful. Barilla will name the $170 million it spent on a plant. It will not name what it spent on a brand. That tells you which number it treats as a secret.

What to watch next

Three things decide whether this works. First, whether Goodles keeps its own team and its own pace. Second, how fast Barilla puts the brand into Europe. Third, what Kraft Heinz and General Mills do now.

Demand for protein and fibre is still climbing. Circana found that close to half of US adults are trying to eat more protein. Every leader in packaged food now has a Goodles somewhere in its aisle, taking share quietly.

For buyers and holders the lesson is blunt. The best time to buy a fast riser is while it is small and cheap to fold in. By the time a rival holds a tenth of your shelf, you are buying back your own share.