Justin Gill Sold Bachan's, His Grandma's Sauce, for $400M

Bachan means grandma in Japanese, and Justin Gill’s company sells his grandmother’s barbecue sauce. On May 1, 2026, The Marzetti Company finished buying it for $400 million in cash. Bachan’s was six years old.

At a glance

Grandma’s recipe, sold door to door

The family story is on Bachan’s own site. Gill’s grandmother, Judy Yokoyama, was born in Sebastopol in 1936 and lived there all her life, apart from two years in a Japanese American internment camp. She lived on the same property as Gill’s family and taught him the sauce recipe, which had been passed down through the family.

Gill grew up working in his family’s landscaping business. Every holiday season the family made a big batch of the sauce, and Gill and his father delivered bottles to their customers. “Our customers were obsessed and I just knew there was something there,” he writes. The company launched in 2019, per Food Processing. The line now runs to original, roasted garlic, sweet and spicy, hot honey and miso.

The deal

Marzetti announced the purchase with its quarterly earnings on February 3, 2026. Bachan’s had about $87 million in net sales in 2025, and Food Dive reports executives put its compound annual growth from 2022 to 2025 at 48%, driven by wider distribution and demand. CEO David Ciesinski said on the earnings call that the brand “significantly over-indexed with millennials and Gen Z.”

The appeal for the buyer is clear from its own portfolio. Much of Marzetti’s recent sauce growth has come from licensing restaurant names such as Chick-fil-A for grocery shelves. “We’ve always wanted brand platforms that we could own that we could also grow,” Ciesinski said. Bachan’s is one it owns outright.

The deal closed on May 1, ahead of the June 30 target, per Pulse 2.0. Marzetti paid with cash on hand and a $200 million term loan. Centerview Partners advised Bachan’s and Goldman Sachs advised Marzetti. Gill said when the deal was announced that he was “honored to partner with The Marzetti Company for the next stage of making my vision for Bachan’s a reality.”

What the numbers say

$400 million on $87 million of sales is about 4.6 times revenue. Run Marzetti’s 48% growth rate backward three years and Bachan’s 2022 sales come out near $27 million, so the brand roughly tripled in the three years before the sale. Both are our calculations from the company’s disclosed figures; Marzetti published neither the multiple nor the 2022 number. Gill’s stake and the split of proceeds have not been disclosed.

What founders can take from it

• The origin story is the product. Bachan’s sells a specific grandmother’s recipe with a specific family history, and puts her in the brand’s name.
• Sell to the buyer that is missing what you have. Marzetti grew in sauces by licensing other companies’ names. It paid four-plus times sales for one of its own.
• Growth rate sets the price. A sauce brand compounding at 48% a year could ask for a multiple a slower brand would not get.

Related founders

• Elizabeth Stein Sells Purely Elizabeth to Ferrero, Stays CEO: another 2026 food-brand sale to a strategic buyer, at a similar multiple.
• Daniel Patiño Bought Salad and Go Back for $180,000: a food brand’s name sold for very different money.
• Nima Jalali Sold Control of Salt & Stone. He Kept the Job.: a consumer founder selling in 2026.

Sourcing: the price, $87 million of 2025 net sales, the 2019 founding, the Sebastopol headquarters and Gill’s quote are per Food Processing (Andy Hanacek, February 3, 2026), citing Marzetti’s release. The 48% growth rate, flavour line-up and David Ciesinski’s quotes are per Food Dive (Laurel Deppen, February 10, 2026). The May 1 closing, $200 million term loan and advisers are per Marzetti’s completion release as carried by Pulse 2.0. The family history and Gill’s “obsessed” line are from Bachan’s “Our Story” page, read October 28, 2026. The multiple and implied 2022 sales are our arithmetic. No portrait is used.