TreeHouse cuts full-year profit forecast

TreeHouse Foods cut its full-year profit forecast due to weak results at its newly acquired private label business and announced the departure of an executive who had a key role in making the company the largest U.S. private label food maker.

TreeHouse boosted its private label business when it closed the $2.7 billion acquisition of ConAgra Foods' private label in February. A plant in northeast Cedar Rapids was included in the sale.

The results at the business fell short of TreeHouse's expectations in the third quarter and sales in the current quarter would not be enough to stem the declines, Chief Executive Officer Sam Reed said in a statement.

The company, which also owns brands such as Bay Valley Foods and Flag Stone Foods, cut its full-year adjusted earnings forecast to $2.80 to $2.85 per share from $3 to $3.10 per share, pinning the blame squarely on the underperforming private label business.

TreeHouse also said President Christopher Silva would leave. The departure, which comes three month after Chief Financial Officer Dennis Riordan said he would quit, will leave the company without the two key executives that helped orchestrate and comolete the ConAgra deal.

TreeHouse said Riordan would replace Silva as president on an interim basis and appointed Matthew Foulston, a Compass Minerals International executive, as its chief financial officer.

ConAgra had struggled to make a profit from the private label business that was plagued by integration costs, customer service problems and low profit margins due to price concessions. ConAgra acquired the private label business when it bought Ralcorp for $6.8 billion in November 2012.

Oak Brook, Ill.-based TreeHouse also said it would close a manufacturing plant in Delta, British Columbia, and cut 100 of the 160 jobs at a plant in Battle Creek, Mich. It acquired the plants as part of the ConAgra deal.