On December 7th, Post Holdings Inc. announced that it would acquire the Peter Pan peanut butter brand from Conagra Brands Inc. During the past week, Mars acquired Kind Inc.

It is generally accepted that multinational food companies, including Nestle, Unilever and others, will both diversify through acquisition of brands that are complementary to their core operations but will also divest product lines that provide disproportionately low returns on investment in capital and managerial effort.