If this is your first time registering, please check your inbox for more information about the benefits of your Forbes account and what you can do next! From their earliest days, merchants of debt—“private equity shops” in the current parlance—have been attracted to the food business. Who can forget KKR’s $31 billion battle over RJR Nabisco in 1988? A few years later, Borden, maker of everything from condensed milk to Elmer’s Glue, was consumed by an ill-fated leveraged buyout.