Hain Celestial’s struggles ruined CEO’s plan to sell company

Irwin Simon had big plans to grow his Hain Celestial Group stable of organic and natural foods and then sell the company, food industry advisers tell The Post.

Those plans are going to have to wait.

The founder and CEO of the 23-year-old company is going to have to first deal with the accounting flap it announced last week — and then find a buyer big enough to digest his 50-plus brands, food company experts told The Post.

“From early on, his vision was to build it and sell it,” said an adviser in the consumer food space who knows Simon.

But Simon’s plan had several shortcomings, sources said, including:

l Hain was built without a strong structure under Simon — an issue that came to the fore this week with the announced accounting issues.

l   The company’s myriad brands make it hard to attract a single buyer, the adviser said.

“They have 1 million SKUs [stock keeping unit codes],” he noted. “That is too much for a Kraft, Heinz or Mondelez to handle.”

Now with Hain Celestial’s stock diving, Simon will probably be resistant to any attempt to buy his business at what he considers a cheap price, the banker said.

Simon said he didn’t build the company to sell it — but to change the way people eat.