Pineland Farms Potato Plant now part of Post Holdings

The Pineland Farms Potato company in Mars Hill, Maine - acquired last year by Bob Evans Foods - changed hands again this year as Bob Evans Foods was acquired by Post Holdings.

Last month, St. Louis-based Post Holdings closed on a $1.5 billion deal to buy Ohio-based refrigerated foods giant Bob Evans Farms, whose production plants include the Pineland Farms Potato Company..

Bob Evans Farms purchased Pineland Farms Potato Co. from the Libra Foundation for $115 million last year, announcing the deal in January and closing in the spring.

The 125,000 square-foot Pineland facility makes pre-cooked and mashed potato products with spuds purchased from regional farms and employs more than 150 people. The Pineland potato business also includes a 600-acre farm in St. Agatha that supplies the factory.

The sale to Bob Evans was meant to give the Pineland factory a parent organization with a larger reach in the food industry, said Bill Haggett, the CEO of Pineland in an interview at the time. Pineland was founded in 1997 as Naturally Potatoes and went through multiple ownership structures before being acquired by the nonprofit Libra Foundation in 2010 and then sold last year.

Post Holdings officials said the company is forming a refrigerated retail business unit and a foodservice business unit.