operations, thereby increasing marketing and distribution efficiencies, and enhance our presence with key retailers. We believe the consumer foods market will continue to provide opportunities for growth through acquisitions of complementary businesses, and we are currently considering several acquisition opportunities that, if completed, would significantly increase the size, scale and breadth of our businesses. There can be no assurance that we will continue to consider or pursue, or be successful in acquiring, any such businesses. To the extent we do proceed with acquisitions in the near term, we may finance the purchase price with proceeds from additional secured and/or unsecured borrowings of indebtedness, and possibly additional equity issuances. While our activities to date have primarily focused on acquisitions, we have recently completed the divestiture of certain assets (including assets of the Michael Foods Canadian business, the PowerBar Australia assets and Musahsi trademark), and we expect that future activities also could include additional divestitures of businesses or portfolio companies, under appropriate circumstances, to further our business strategies.
Our Businesses
Post Consumer Brands
Post Consumer Brands includes the Post Foods and MOM Brands cereal businesses and manufactures, markets and sells branded and private label RTE cereal products. The RTE cereal category has been one of the most prominent categories in the food industry. According to Nielsen’s expanded All Outlets Combined (xAOC) information, the category was approximately $8.6 billion for the 52-week period ended July 2, 2016. We have leveraged the strength of our brands, category expertise, and over a century of institutional knowledge to create a diverse portfolio of cereals. Post Consumer Brands is the third largest seller of RTE cereals in the United States with an 18.2% share of retail dollar sales and a 21.0% share of retail pound sales for the 52-week period ended July 2, 2016, based on Nielsen’s xAOC information. Nielsen’s xAOC is representative of food, drug and mass merchandisers (including Walmart), some club retailers (including Sam’s Club & BJs), some dollar retailers (including Dollar General, Family Dollar & Dollar Tree) and military. Our brands includeHoney Bunches of Oats, the fourth largest brand of RTE cereal in the United States with a 4.6% xAOC dollar market share for the 52-week period ended July 2, 2016, as well asPebbles,Great Grains,Grape-Nuts, Post Shredded Wheat,Oh’s, Honeycomb,Golden Crisp,Post Raisin Bran,Alpha-Bits, Shreddies, Malt-O-Meal, Farina, Dyno-Bitesand MOM’s Best. These products are primarily manufactured through a flexible production platform at eight owned facilities in the United States and Canada.
Michael Foods Group
Through our Michael Foods Group segment, we produce and/or distribute egg products, refrigerated potato products, cheese and other dairy case products and pasta products. Our egg products business produces and distributes numerous egg products under theBetter’n Eggs, All Whites, Papetti’s, Abbotsford Farms, Emulsa, EasyEggs, Table Ready andWillamette Egg Farms brands, among others. Through this business, we operate 13 egg products production facilities located in the United States, some of which are fully integrated, from the production and maintenance of laying flocks through the processing of egg products. Refrigerated potato products are marketed under a variety of brands, including Simply Potatoes, Diner’s Choiceand Farm Fresh,and this business maintains a main processing facility in Minnesota, with a smaller facility located in Nevada. Our cheese and other dairy-case products are marketed principally under theCrystal Farms brand, and other trademarks include Crescent Valley, Westfield Farms and David’s Deli. Through this business, we operate a cheese packaging facility in Lake Mills, Wisconsin, which processes and packages various cheese products for the Crystal Farms brand and for various private label customers. Our pasta business, Dakota Growers, has vertically integrated durum wheat milling and pasta production capabilities and produces over 150 different shapes of pasta products at two manufacturing plants. We sell products to the foodservice, food ingredient, retail grocery and private label markets. Our major customers include foodservice distributors, restaurant chains and major retail grocery chains.