Matt Miller

The spice giant McCormick is betting on scale, moving to combine with Unilever's food business in a deal aimed at building a global flavor powerhouse.

The key question is whether investors will have any appetite for it.

I know, a lot of puns here, but I'm here for it and for the spices because I love to cook and I spend a lot of my day in the spice aisle.

Looking at the spice aisle.

at ShopRite.

It's been a lot of days at ShopRite.

Joining us now is Brendan Foley, chairman and CEO of McCormick.

Brendan, great to have you.

Really appreciate you coming in.

Talk to us first about this deal, because it is a massive deal.

And I guess you'll back into a company that still will have a majority of Unilever shareholders, but you'll stay on running the business and keep your headquarters.

So I want to focus on the flavor too.

I have a million questions about your products, but I want to ask first about the deal because the structure is interesting.

It's a reverse Morris trust.

I don't know what that means, but tell us about the mechanics of that and why you decided to do it this way.

Well, and Unilever is a monster business, but they must have a lot of faith in you and your management team, because otherwise...

they would obviously replace you.

I wonder about a couple of trends in the food business that everyone has seen, right?

The private label business, the white label business has gotten big.

So how do you differentiate McCormick from, I don't know, Bowl and Basket or whatever private label brand is sitting right next to it in the spice aisle?