Pepsi to buy fruit and vegetable snack maker Bare Foods

(Reuters) - PepsiCo Inc (PEP.O) said on Friday it would buy baked fruit and vegetable snack maker Bare Foods Co, in a deal that underscores the company's efforts to strengthen its healthy snack portfolio.

The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

Bare Foods sells Granny Smith apple chips, banana and coconut snacks and was founded in 2001 in a family owned organic apple farm in Washington.

U.S. food companies have made a flurry of acquisitions in the snack food space as they seek to tap rising demand for snacks that have low salt content and are less processed.

Last year, Kellogg Co (K.N) said it would buy the owner of RXBAR protein bars for $600 million, while Campbell Soup Co (CPB.N) acquired Snyder's-Lance, the maker of Cape Cod potato chips, in a $4.9 billion deal.

Bare Foods will operate independently and will report into Frito-Lay North America, Pepsi said.

(Reporting by Aishwarya Venugopal in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)