Sonoma Brands takes over Krave space

Smashmallow shifts next door; multi-brand retail space planned on West Napa Street|

Employees of Sonoma Brands’ freestanding Smashmallow subsidiary have moved out their space on West Napa Street in the old Chateau Sonoma building and into the office space formerly occupied by Krave Jerky. The Smashmallow employees will work alongside the Zupa Noma cold soup and Peckish snacking egg brand teams.

Krave announced in May of this year that it would be moving its operations from Sonoma to Austin, Texas before the end of the year.

Sonoma Brands is owned and run by Jon Sebastiani, who founded the Krave business in 2009 before selling it to Hershey for $218 million in 2015. For three years, Krave seemed committed to remaining in Sonoma but Hershey’s acquisitions of the Bark Thins brand in 2016 and then the SkinnyPop popcorn brand in 2017 changed the dynamic.

“We have focused on building our snacking business with the acquisition of several brands, including most recently Amplify Snack Brands, the company behind SkinnyPop, located in Austin, Texas,” said Hershey Director of Corporate Communications Jeff Beckman earlier this year. “To bring these great snack brands together as a single business, we have decided to make Amplify the hub for our emerging brands. As a result, we are beginning to plan for an eventual move of our Krave business from Sonoma to Austin.”

Smashmallow employees have already moved into the former Krave space on the ground floor of 117 W. Napa St. (in the same building as the Index-Tribune). In addition to the 3,500 square feet of newly refurbished office space, there is around 500 square feet of storefront. Sebastiani said that his plans for that space are still in development but that they will include “some way that customers can interact with all of our brands.” He plans to tie the opening of the space to the Sonoma International Film Festival in late March.

Sonoma Brands has approximately two dozen employees in Sonoma.

Building landlord Kenwood Investments has not announced any plans for the building that formerly housed Smashmallow at 153 W. Napa St.

Email Lorna at lorna.sheridan@sonomanews.com.

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