New York-based Blackbird Foods Acquired By Ahimsa Companies

Blackbird Foods is the latest plant-based brand to be acquired by Ahimsa Companies after Simulate and Wicked Kitchen

22nd February 2025

2 Minutes Read

Ahimsa Companies has acquired the New York-based frozen pizza brand Blackbird Foods.

The plant-based private equity firm acquired Blackbird Foods for an undisclosed sum on February 17. Following the acquisition, Blackbird Foods aims to collaborate and expand the brand in the coming months to reinforce its position as a key market player.

Blackbird Foods was founded by chefs Emanuel Storch and Mike Pease in 2020 with a limited range of seitan and frozen pizzas. Today, the brand’s products are available in over 3,000 stores across the US, including Sprouts, Whole Foods, and Target.

Blackbird Foods makes four varieties of its proprietary seitan, four types of seitan-based “Blackbird Wings,” and seven kinds of hand-tossed, NYC-style frozen pizza, including a new pepperoni flavor pie made in collaboration with alternative protein powerhouse Beyond Meat.

Consolidating the plant-based food sector

Photo shows several boxes of Blackbird Foods pizzas next to a plate and a pizza stone containing slices of cooked pizza — Blackbird Foods The full range also includes a hand-tossed, vegan, Buffalo Pizza

The news follows Ahimsa’s acquisition of Simulate, the company behind Nuggs, in October of 2024. Earlier in the year, Ahimsa acquired Wicked Kitchen along with Good Catch and Current Foods as part of what it called an “industry-wide consolidation effort.”

“We were able to work with these other like-minded brands to really gain more traction and gain more distribution in this space and piggyback off of each other’s followings and fans and customer base as well, and so this acquisition will only allow us to further that collaboration,” Storch told FoodNavigator.

Ahimsa operates with a “shared-services model,” which enables the sharing of manufacturing, retail, and logistics expertise between its acquired brands. Storch told FoodNavigator that combining operations will help Blackbird Foods grow and sustain itself.

Plant-based meat sales fell in 2024, but frozen plant-based meat sales continued to do well, and Blackbird Foods grew its revenues by 20 percent over the year. According to Just Food, Blackbird Foods also raised USD $125,000 in a crowdfunding round on StartEngine in 2024, where the brand claimed to have recorded lifetime sales totaling more than $11 million.