Compass Diversified, a publicly traded holding company specializing in niche middle-market businesses, has acquired The Honey Pot Company to make its niche of natural period care much bigger.
Known as CODI, the holding company is paying $380 million for a majority stake in The Honey Pot, which will join a portfolio that includes Ergobaby, Lugano Diamonds, BOA and The Sterno Group. The Honey Pot’s existing leadership team is slated to stay in place, and its management will retain a significant minority stake in the company. Shareholders’ reaction to the deal, expected to close next month, was muted, and publicly traded CODI’s share price was down .69% on Monday to $21.62.
The Honey Pot’s annual sales are estimated to be $120 million. CODI’s sales for the third quarter of 2023 dipped 1% to $569.6 million, and its full-year 2022 sales were up 17% to $2.3 billion. The Honey Pot previously received funding from New Voices Fund and VMG Partners among several other investors. Founded in 2012 by Beatrice Dixon and her brother Simon Gray, who loaned her $21,000 of the $700,000 it took to get The Honey Pot Company off the ground, the Atlanta-based brand was an early mover in the natural period care space, creating products with plant-derived ingredients such as lactic acid and apple cider vinegar.
CODI’s acquisition of The Honey Pot is a massive milestone for a Black-owned brand and a brand in the period care space that’s been dominated by the likes of Kotex, Playtex, Always and Tampax. It’s the latest in a string of period care deals that show acquirers believe there’s room to eat into the market share of the dominant brands. In 2019, Procter & Gamble acquired organic cotton tampon maker This is L. In 2022, Kimberly-Clark picked up a majority stake in reusable period and incontinence underwear brand Thinx. Also in 2022, Essity acquired Thinx competitor Knix.
Dixon, a former retail broker, landed a deal with Target to put The Honey Pot in approximately 1,200 doors in 2017. By 2021, the brand was sold in over 24,000 doors, including Walmart, Walgreens and CVS. Today, its products are available in 33,000 doors. Over the years, The Honey Pot has expanded its offerings—currently totaling over 60 storekeeping units—beyond its initial repertoire of pads and tampons to span supplements, over-the-counter anti-itch solutions, intimate washes and wipes.
From the start, Dixon foresaw Honey Pot having a lucrative exit. Talking to Beauty Independent in 2017, she envisioned the exit as a $1 billion deal with Unilever. (It could still happen.) At the time, she said, “I would like to see my brand in every store you could possibly dream of. I would like my granddaughter to be able to go into a store 30 years from now and for Honey Pot to be in there whether I own it or not. I want to be a legacy brand like Vagisil or Summer’s Eve.”
The Honey Pot has long been a proponent of de-gendering the period care space by moving away from the term “feminine hygiene.” Menstrual brands that have launched since like the disruptor August have taken up the mantle of raising public consciousness about who needs period products to encompass more than women or people identifying with the label “feminine.”
The Honey Pot has been outspoken about developing better, safer products for Black people. The Black community has been instrumental to the brand’s success and hasn’t been afraid to call it out if it feels it’s gone astray. In 2022, after The Honey Pot reformulated foaming washes, a social media frenzy ensued that involved questions about Dixon’s ownership of the company. Back then, she was accused of giving up ownership to a large corporation, a claim she addressed as untrue.
Although Dixon will remain CEO and chief innovation officer at The Honey Pot, under new ownership the brand will have a challenge managing the discourse around its audience and products. The Honey Pot’s Instagram post revealing its deal with CODI sought to head off customer concerns. The post reads, “The quality of formulas are not changing. We will be able to continue to impact the way humans perceive and create their wellness journey by offering more science, education, innovative products.”
Still, several commenters implored the brand to keep its commitment to representation. An Instagram commenter with the handle magnolia_lynn wrote, “Keep her brown please. That speaks for all of us who you originally started the company for. I’ve been using honeypot since it first came out and it worked wonders for me got my wife hip and now we both use your products faithfully. Please don’t change the ingredients to a bunch of stuff we cannot pronounce or that’s bad for our bodies. Maintain your stance on clean affordable products for our bodies.”
Dixon is intent on maintaining the trust The Honey Pot has built with customers. She tells Beauty Independent, “We know that trust requires transparency. Our communication approach has always been to strip away boundaries that are often created between brands and consumers, and bring our humans into the fold with education forward content. We prioritized staying true to both our brand ethos and our knowledge that these stories matter.”
She adds, “We also understand the long-standing history of vaginal care brands, as well as Black-founded brands, and what that means for our community. These events have nurtured justifiable concern and thus generates misinformation. It’s incredibly important that we take this into account to lead with empathy as we provide the resources necessary to bring our community along with us on our growth journey.”
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