photo by: Mike Yoder

In this 2013 file photo, products from Hilary's are shown.

Consumers have been gobbling up the veggie burgers made by Lawrence-based Hilary’s for several years. Today, the question is what will happen to the company and its Lawrence operations now that it is being swallowed by one of the largest companies in the agriculture industry.

A new venture led by Archer Daniels Midland and Marfrig Global Foods has signed a deal to purchase the parent company of Hilary’s. A spokeswoman for the new venture, dubbed PlantPlus Foods, declined to comment on the deal or what would happen to the Lawrence employees who are headquartered in industrial space near 23rd Street and Haskell Avenue.

Presumably PlantPlus Foods is interested in Hilary’s various products, which include eight styles of veggie burgers, plus about a half-dozen varieties of meatless sausage products. Whether PlantPlus Foods intends to keep the company’s presence in Lawrence, though, is less certain. A representative at Hilary’s Lawrence offices declined to comment recently.

At the same time that PlantPlus Foods announced its pending purchase of Hilary’s, it also announced that it was purchasing Sol Cuisine, a Canadian manufacturer of branded and private label plant-based products.

Sol Cuisine appears to be a much bigger company than Hilary’s. The publicly traded company — it is traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange — boasts of two manufacturing plants in Ontario, Canada, that have the capabilities to produce up to 10 million kilograms per year of plant-based foods. That’s about three times what the company is currently producing, according to the company’s website.

Clearly, the company has capacity to make a lot of Hilary’s veggie burgers. That probably could impact Hilary’s and the Lawrence operations in a couple of different ways. On one hand, it could mean a major expansion for the brand, meaning more work and potentially more back-office jobs in marketing, management, regulatory, sales and a host of other departments for Hilary’s. Those jobs could remain in Lawrence. If so, the sale could be a real positive development for Hilary’s presence in Lawrence.

The other possibility is that those type of jobs get consumed by departments that already exist in the larger Sol Cuisine, and Hilary’s becomes an example of an another idea that got started in Lawrence but loses all connection to the city once it reaches a certain size.

Given that company officials are tight-lipped currently, we’ll have to wait and see how the deal transpires. Del Sol shareholders earlier this month approved the sale, and announced it expected the transaction to be finalized in late January. PlantPlus Foods has said it expects the Hilary’s transaction to be completed in the first quarter, but indications are that PlantPlus Foods already has completed the purchase of Hilary’s.

Becky Harpstrite, a marketing executive for Hilary’s, told me the transaction has been completed. She said production work continues at the Lawrence location currently, but she said PlantPlus Foods wasn’t making any comment about future production plans.

I wouldn’t necessarily take that as a sign that the company is going to move out of Lawrence. I haven’t heard anything that makes me certain of that by any means. Rather, the company isn’t saying much one way or the other.

Regardless of its future direction, the company has been an example of a Lawrence success story to this point. It got its start back in 2011 when Hilary Brown, the owner of a local hamburger shop across from the Lawrence Public Library — it was called Local Burger — decided to focus on making veggie burgers rather than running a restaurant.

By 2013, Hilary’s had landed a contract for the veggie burgers to be sold in Whole Foods stores across the country. At that time the company moved from its humble startup location in the aged shopping center at 19th and Haskell into a larger production space at 2205 Haskell Ave.

I last reported on the company in 2018. By that time, Brown no longer was part of the day-to-day operations of the company, and it had been purchased by several investment groups, including one led by Wichita businessman and KU business school alumnus David Murfin.

The company — which kept the Hilary’s brand name but operates under the legal name of DEW Drink Eat Well, LLC — grew during that time period too. It grew from about 20 employees in 2013 to about 40 employees in 2018. At the time, the company was anticipating another 10 to 15 jobs as it planned to modify the Haskell Avenue building to accommodate more production equipment. I don’t have a good estimate on how many employees the company currently has.

But the company has changed since that time. Harpstrite confirmed that New York-based company VG Growth Partners became the primary owner of Hilary’s before it was sold to PlantPlus Foods. Harpstrite couldn’t give me details on how many people the local production facility currently employs.

But the operation did grow in scope when VG purchased it. She said that the Lawrence location also began serving as the production site for another VG-owned company, Free2B Foods. Like Hilary’s, Free2B caters to consumers who are interested in allergen-free products. Instead of veggie burgers, though, it focuses on sweet treats. She said the Lawrence plant has been producing a variety of chocolate candies.

I think there may be more news coming on all of this that might make future plans clearer. I’ll keep my eyes open for it and pass it along.