Shearer's Foods, LLC is a U.S. manufacturer and distributor of snack foods. Founded in 1974 as Shearer's Snacks, it is headquartered in
Brewster, Ohio.
With more than 3,400 employees across eight facilities, the company manufactures, warehouses, and distributes branded snacks such as Sheerer's Potato Chips as well as private label products for snack food companies and retailers.
Shearer's now has factories in Ohio, Texas, Arkansas, Oregon, Virginia, Iowa, Minnesota and Ontario, with worldwide distribution. Its plant in Massillon is the first food manufacturing plant in the world to achieve
LEED platinum certification.
In December 2023,
Clayton Dubilier & Rice completed the acquisition of the company.
History
In the early 1900s, the Shearer family opened Shearer's Market in Canton, Ohio. The third generation, Jack Shearer and his wife, Rosemary, operated the family grocery store from the 1950s until 1976, and in 1974 bought a snack food distributorship and named it Brookside Distributing. In 1979, they began manufacturing "hand-cooked" potato chips until discovering that a kettle cooked chip provided more of a crunch and a standardized method of preparation. The Shearers hand-cooked potato chips from the kettle, packaged them in one-pound poly bags with a twist tie, delivered them from a warehouse and first sold them under the Kettle-Cook'd label.
Growth and transition
In 1982, Shearer's purchased a 20,000 square foot facility on ten acres in Brewster, Ohio. Soon after, six hand-kettles and a peanut roaster were in operation. The Grandma Shearer's logo appeared on shelves in 1983, and 3,700 pounds of potatoes were processed daily. Shearer's installed its first continuous fryer to produce up to 1,000 pounds of potato chips every hour and expanded its warehouse and maintenance space by 9,000 square feet in 1986.
In 1988, the company increased its plant size again. This growth continued through the 1990s and included the addition of a second continuous fryer, two hand-kettle fryers that featured automatic stirring systems (among the first manufactured in all of the United States), computerized combination weighers, state-of-the-snack equipment for tortilla chips and cheese curls, and an additional 100,000 square feet of space.
In the early 2000s, six hand-kettle cookers, a new potato peeling system, distribution and transfer conveyors, and a new seasoning system were installed. Thirty-three acres adjacent to the current location were purchased to combine for 77 acres in total, while a portion of the storage operation was relocated nine miles from the headquarters to Massillon.
The company was named "Snack Manufacturer of the Year" by ''Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery'' magazine in 2002
and again in 2011.
Shearer's developed a new logo, revamped packaging, and expanded its
factory outlet store in 2004. A $2.6 million wastewater treatment plant was completed in the spring, and six additional hand-kettle cookers were installed along with a new packaging area, making Shearer's one of the largest manufacturers of kettle-cooked potato chips in the nation.
Recent history
An increasing trend of whole grains and better-for-you snacks resulted in three new whole grain tortilla chip products with 100% whole grain yellow corn in 2006.
* 2008: unveiled plans to build the first manufacturing plant in the world to achieve the highest sustainability award for environmental responsibility
* 2009: introduced two multi-SKU brands to retail, Tangos™ Tortilla Chips and Shapers™ Whole Grain Chips
* 2010: acquired Snack Alliance, Inc. and its Canadian affiliate (collectively, “Snack Alliance”), a branded, contract pack and private label snack producer in North America (Founded in 2000, Snack Alliance employed over 400 associates across the United States and Canada. Snack Alliance had manufacturing operations located in Hermiston, Oregon and Bristol, Virginia that produced potato chips, tortilla chips, extruded products, popcorn, and their
Riceworks
Shearer's Foods, LLC is a U.S. manufacturer and distributor of snack foods. Founded in 1974 as Shearer's Snacks, it is headquartered in Brewster, Ohio.
With more than 3,400 employees across eight facilities, the company manufactures, warehouses, ...
brand of whole grain rice snacks.)
* May 2011: extended its line of potato chips to include zero trans fat chips, cooked in 100% canola oil
* June 2012: moved its headquarters into the four story Grand Mill Centre building in downtown Massillon, Ohio
* October 2012: was sold to Chicago-based Wind Point Partners.
* January 2015: majority stake was acquired by Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan through the purchase of additional equity stake (The private equity group had initially acquired stake in the company in 2012 alongside Wind Point Partners and in partnership with CJ Fralaigh. Since the sale in 2012, Shearer's completed acquisitions of Lance Private Brands and Medallion Foods. These acquisitions doubled the size of the business and significantly expanded private label and contract manufacturing offerings.)
* 2016: acquired Barrel O' Fun, a division of KLN Family Brands located in
Perham, Minnesota
Perham ( ) is a city in Otter Tail County, Minnesota. The population was 3,512 at the time of the 2020 census.
History
Perham was platted in 1873, and named for Josiah Perham, first president of the Northern Pacific Railway. As the village gr ...
(The Barrel O' Fun brand includes many of the same snack items that Shearer's already produced. Shearer's now operates the Barrel O' Fun manufacturing plant and warehouse under their name and are not associated with KLN, although they share the same property. The Perham plant continues to manufacture the Barrel O' Fun brand of snacks, but now produces private label brands as well.)
* 2021: Shearer's Foods discontinued production of its own Shearer's brand snacks, in favor of private label and contract snack manufacturing.
Environmental sustainability
The company has expressed a commitment to sustainability and energy performance, joining Energy Star in 2006 and working to improve energy performance in its offices, manufacturing facilities and distribution centers.
The company received recognition by way of a Crain's Cleveland Business Emerald Award for its efforts.
Their energy management program includes:
*A zero waste program that calls for all facilities to send less than one percent of waste to landfills
* Recycling finished goods and wet waste for use as
animal feed
Animal feed is food given to domestic animals, especially livestock, in the course of animal husbandry. There are two basic types: fodder and forage. Used alone, the word ''feed'' more often refers to fodder. Animal feed is an important input to ...
* Reclamation of all potato starch for refinement as industrial lubricant
* Recycling of all used
vegetable oil
Vegetable oils, or vegetable fats, are oils extracted from seeds or from other parts of fruits. Like animal fats, vegetable fats are ''mixtures'' of triglycerides. Soybean oil, grape seed oil, and cocoa butter are examples of seed oils, or fat ...
* Conversion to high efficiency T8 & T5 lighting in
Brewster and
Lubbock
Lubbock ( )
is the 10th-most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of government of Lubbock County. With a population of 260,993 in 2021, the city is also the 85th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the northwe ...
manufacturing sites, and in
Navarre
Navarre (; es, Navarra ; eu, Nafarroa ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre ( es, Comunidad Foral de Navarra, links=no ; eu, Nafarroako Foru Komunitatea, links=no ), is a foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, ...
Distribution warehouse areas
* New oil filtration equipment to increase oil quality and eliminate rendering of oil
* Economizers on large air handling units to greatly reduce
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
consumption during heating season
* Wastewater management facilities that comply with state
Environmental Protection Agency
A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...
requirements
The company broke ground on its
LEED Platinum Certified snack food manufacturing plant in 2009. The plant in
Massillon, Ohio
Massillon is a city in Stark County, Ohio, Stark County in the U.S. state of Ohio, approximately west of Canton, Ohio, Canton, south of Akron, and south of Cleveland. The population was 32,146 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Mass ...
was the first manufacturing plant in the world to achieve the highest sustainability award for environmental responsibility.
Manufacturing
Manufacturing capabilities
Shearer's various products are made from potatoes, yellow, white, blue, and organic corn, and for tortilla chips, company-produced masa. Seasonings and flavors are developed by an in-house R&D group and also in conjunction with external partners. Production capabilities include:
* hand kettles for production of kettle cooked potato chips
* continuous potato chip lines for standard, wavy and rippled chip production
* tortilla chip lines
* extruders for production of curl and puff product
* twin screw extrusion production
Products include sliced, rippled, and wavy potato chips, kettle-cooked potato chips, tortilla and whole grain extruded chips, and other extruded products such as cheese curls and puff corn (also known as hulless popcorn).
The company maintains six distribution centers in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and operates its own distribution routes, while also relying on a network of select distributors throughout the midwestern United States, New England, and parts of Canada.
Plants
*
Massillon, Ohio
Massillon is a city in Stark County, Ohio, Stark County in the U.S. state of Ohio, approximately west of Canton, Ohio, Canton, south of Akron, and south of Cleveland. The population was 32,146 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Mass ...
: Headquarters; LEED manufacturing plant
*
Brewster, Ohio: main manufacturing plant
*
Bristol, Virginia
Bristol is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 17,219. It is the twin city of Bristol, Tennessee, just across the state line, which runs down the middle of its main street, State S ...
: manufacturing plant
*
Burlington, Iowa
Burlington is a city in, and the county seat of, Des Moines County, Iowa, United States. The population was 23,982 in the 2020 census, a decline from the 26,839 population in 2000. Burlington is the center of a micropolitan area, which includes ...
: manufacturing plant
*
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...
: manufacturing plant
*
Guelph, Ontario
Guelph ( ; 2021 Canadian Census population 143,740) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as "The Royal City", Guelph is roughly east of Kitchener and west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Highway 6, Highway 7 and Welli ...
: manufacturing plant
*
Hermiston, Oregon
Hermiston () is a city in Umatilla County, Oregon, United States. Its population of 19,696 makes it the largest city in Eastern Oregon. Hermiston is the largest, and fastest-growing, city in the Hermiston-Pendleton Micropolitan Statistical Area ...
: manufacturing plant (Former location. Boiler explosion destroyed plant in early 2022.)
*
Lubbock, Texas
Lubbock ( )
is the 10th-most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of government of Lubbock County. With a population of 260,993 in 2021, the city is also the 85th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the northw ...
: co-pack manufacturing plant
*
Newport, Arkansas: manufacturing plant
*
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...
: manufacturing plant
*
Perham, Minnesota
Perham ( ) is a city in Otter Tail County, Minnesota. The population was 3,512 at the time of the 2020 census.
History
Perham was platted in 1873, and named for Josiah Perham, first president of the Northern Pacific Railway. As the village gr ...
: manufacturing plant
*
Waterford, Pennsylvania
Waterford is a Borough (Pennsylvania), borough in Erie County, Pennsylvania, Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,475 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Erie, Pennsylvania, Erie Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Waterfor ...
: manufacturing plant
Products
Shearer's Branded Snacks
* Kettle Cooked Potato Chips in flavors Original, Mesquite BBQ, Sea Salt and Pepper, Sea Salt and Vinegar, Hot Pepper Jalapeño and 40% Less Fat
* Home-Style Potato Chips in Classic, Bacon-Cheddar and Rippled
* Rippled Potato Chips in flavors in Original, Sour Cream and Onion, Home Run Hot Dog (seasonal)
* Savory Potato Chips in Original, Sour Cream & Onion, Lightly Salted, Cheddar & Sour Cream and Barbeque
* Baked Cheese Curls and Krazi Curls
* Butter Puffs and Cheese Puffs
* Pretzels in Thins, Minis, Sticks and flavors Honey Wheat and Butter Twist
* Pork Rinds in flavors Original and Barbecue
* Tortilla chips in Multigrain & Flaxseed, Fire Roasted Veggie, Blue Corn & Sesame, Deli Rounds, Bite Size, Cantina Style, Margarita Lime and Restaurant Style
Other Shearer's brands include
riceworks
Shearer's Foods, LLC is a U.S. manufacturer and distributor of snack foods. Founded in 1974 as Shearer's Snacks, it is headquartered in Brewster, Ohio.
With more than 3,400 employees across eight facilities, the company manufactures, warehouses, ...
,
Granny Goose
Granny Goose is an American brand of potato chips and other snack foods.
History
Granny Goose Foods, Inc. was founded in Oakland, California, Oakland, California, by Matthew Barr in 1946. In 1993, the company acquired the Laura Scudder brand fro ...
, Thin & Crispy, Brent & Sam's, Delicious Bakery, and Vista.
References
[{{cite web , url=https://fox8.com/news/you-wont-be-seeing-shearers-brand-chips-on-shelves-anymore-heres-why/ , title=You won't be seeing Shearer's brand chips on shelves anymore — here's why , date=19 February 2022 ]
Companies based in Ohio
Snack food manufacturers of the United States
Brand name potato chips and crisps
2023 mergers and acquisitions