In the frantic whirl of earnings season, Heinz (NYSE:HNZ) announced today that it will acquire the small frozen food company Nancy's Specialty Foods from affiliates of Kohlberg & Co. This comes hot on the heels of its larger acquisition of Group Danone's (NYSE:DA) HP Foods business.

Nancy's is best known in the U.S. for its offerings at warehouse clubs Costco (NASDAQ:COST) and BJ's Wholesale Club (NYSE:BJ).

Is it important to investors that Heinz acquired a company with $64 million in sales? Particularly when you consider that the $64 million represents less than 1% of the total sales at Heinz in the last year? I'd argue that it's important for a couple of reasons.

Primarily it's important because Nancy's fits the existing business at Heinz, a Motley Fool Income Investor selection. The company is not adding a widgets business, but another prepackaged foods business that fits in alongside a number of other frozen foods at Heinz. This means Heinz can leverage its clout for the Nancy's products in the freezer aisle in Kroger (NYSE:KR) and Safeway (NYSE:SWY) stores, and may even be able to trim distribution costs over time.

The other reason I like the acquisition is that Heinz expects it to add to earnings in the first year, which means the company is paying a fair price.

The Nancy's acquisition is by no means a huge game changer for Heinz, but more often than not it's the big acquisitions that get a company into trouble, because they're more difficult to digest operationally and culturally, and they generally come with a steep price tag.

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Nathan Parmelee has a beneficial interest in shares of Heinz, but has no financial interest in any of the other companies mentioned. The Motley Fool has an ironclad disclosure policy.