Old is new again at longtime Akron juice maker Country Pure Foods.

Ray Lee, who retired as CEO of Country Pure in 2017, has teamed up with a Cleveland private equity firm to buy the company that makes more than 300 juice products. Lee has returned to the company as CEO.

Lee partnered with private equity company Blue Point Capital, which has a portfolio of companies that includes Italian Rose, a manufacturer and distributor of salsas, dips, sauces and spreads based in Florida.

Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.

Country Pure will keep its headquarters in downtown Akron. Also part of the sale was a plant on West Waterloo Road in Akron, along with four other plants outside Ohio.

“We have no intention of moving” from downtown Akron, said Lee, who plans to continue to live in Florida, where he moved some time ago, and travel to Ohio Pure’s facilities as needed.

“We’ve made an investment there downtown,” he said.

In 2017, the company moved all its headquarters staff to the fourth floor of former O’Neil’s department store building — now called the Roetzel & Andress Building — at 222 S. Main St. downtown. The employees previously had been located at the Country Pure plant and office building on West Waterloo Road. The current headquarters staff numbers 35 to 40 people.

Country Pure sells it products nationwide. Its sells primarily to institutions such as schools, hospitals and prisons, under the Ardmore Farms brand. It also manufactures private-label brands for some of the country’s largest grocery chains, as well as Natural Country juices and fruit drinks, available at retailers nationwide.

In 2018, the company entered the plant-based beverage market and began making private-label almond milk that is sold at various grocery stores.

Lee said he when he retired from Country Pure in 2017, his intention was to “ride off into the sunset.”

But then he heard the owner of Country Pure was looking to sell and a friend in investment banking told him he should buy it.

“He convinced me I should at least take a look at it, and before you know it, we were interviewing [possible] partners,” Lee said.

Country Pure previously was owned by a joint venture of Japanese companies Sapporo International and Toyota Tsusho America. This joint venture purchased Country Pure in 2015 from another private-equity firm.

Country Pure employs more than 500 people at its five plants and at its headquarters. In addition to the Akron plant, the juice maker has two plants in Florida, one in Connecticut and one in Texas.

Lee said he’s long known officials with Blue Point and that was key in deciding to team up with the Cleveland firm.

As for Blue Point’s interest in Country Pure, John LeMay, a partner with Blue Point, said in a news release that the private equity firm has long been tracking Country Pure’s successes.

“Our prior successes and current portfolio investments in the food and beverage segment and our longstanding relationship with Ray, who was the former CEO, make it a natural one for us,.” LeMay said.

Lee, a graduate of Akron’s East high school and the University of Akron, joined the company’s forerunner — Ohio Pure Foods — in 1992, and he was one of the original senior management members when Country Pure Foods was formed in 1995. He ultimately served as CEO for Country Pure Foods for more than 20 years. He left for a brief time and returned.

The company’s roots go back to the 1950s when Walter Mirapaul, who died in 2011, and his brother-in-law formed Ohio Pure Foods. Mirapaul, known in Akron for his devotion to the arts, grew Ohio Pure through acquisitions and remained with the company for a time after it was purchased in 1988 by a Dutch company.

In 1995, Ohio Pure Foods merged with Natural Country Farms of Ellington, Connecticut, forming the business called Country Pure Foods.

Contact reporter Katie Byard at 330-9963781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal. com.