The parent company of Painting with a Twist, America’s original and largest paint-and-sip franchise brand, has acquired Color Me Mine, the industry leader in paint-your-own pottery and Chesapeake Ceramics, a leading global ceramics supplier. Twist Brands LLC was formed as a holding company for all three businesses. The move is meant to cement Twist Brands as the dominant leader in the growing Arts & Crafts as entertainment vertical within the franchise industry and ensure a stable supply chain for the studios operating within those brands.
Color Me Mine, which has 140 units, will operate as a separate brand concept and will continue to focus on ceramics and paint-your-own pottery. The Painting with a Twist team will help support the brand’s infrastructure and growth moving forward. Color Me Mine has seen recent organic expansion in the franchise space through existing owners becoming multi-unit franchisees and adding new studios.
Chesapeake Ceramics is one of the leading global suppliers to paint-your-own-pottery studios, ceramics products dealerships and school art programs with distribution centers in Fresno, CA and Baltimore, MD. It has operated out of Baltimore, MD for more than 40 years. Chesapeake Ceramics currently distributes ceramic arts supplies to thousands of businesses and art programs nationwide, and with the acquisition will add the Duncan Oh Four® line of proprietary bisque designs to its offerings, adding 75 domestic and international distributors as customers.
“Twist Brands establishes a platform for sustainable growth for Painting with a Twist and Color Me Mine, both leaders in their respective categories. With the inclusion of Chesapeake Ceramics, we are in a position to strengthen our supply chain,” said Joe Lewis, CEO of Twist Brands. “Our primary objective in building this platform is to enhance our ability to provide best-in-class support to our franchise owners so they can achieve their goals of success.”
“The team at Color Me Mine is excited for this new chapter. We believe joining a team with support and leadership in every segment will propel the brand to new heights,” says Sean Goodwin, Vice President of Operations at Color Me Mine.
“Chesapeake Ceramics’ legacy is known throughout the ceramics industry and I am excited to join the team to lead through this transition and support our current and future customers,” said Dean Saether, newly appointed General Manager of Chesapeake Ceramics. “Chesapeake Ceramics’ focus will continue to be on customer service and delivering a quality product.”
Painting with a Twist’s first acquisition in the space was in October 2018, when the brand acquired competitor Bottle & Bottega and has since worked to blend the two concepts together. This move allowed Painting with a Twist to expand the brand footprint into untapped markets like Chicago and the state of California. Bottle & Bottega’s co-founder and CEO Nancy Bigley joined Painting with a Twist’s leadership team as Chief Operating Officer.
Painting with a Twist is emerging stronger as a brand as the recent challenges incurred during the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated innovation on a number of fronts. Founded by entrepreneurs Cathy Deano and Renee Maloney in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the innovators of the emerging category are continuing to innovate in this new crisis. The brand this year introduced Twist at Home as a new product line, offering at-home paint kits to guests with video instructions included. Painting with a Twist was also able to quickly pivot to offering virtual experiences which has attracted a number of team building opportunities as businesses search for ways to keep their teams connected as remote working becomes more prevalent and long-lasting.
November 09, 2020