MINNEAPOLIS — Hormel Foods has agreed to pay $775 million to acquire a leading organic and natural meat maker, Hormel’s largest acquisition and a big play in the hot organic-food market.

The purchase of New Jersey-based Applegate Farms is also the latest of three major deals for Hormel over the past two years, as the packaged food company, based in Austin, Minnesota, looks to diversify.

“A growing number of consumers are choosing natural and organic products,” Hormel CEO Jeffrey Ettinger said in a prepared statement. “This deal allows us to expand the breadth of our protein offerings to provide consumers with more choice.”

Privately held Applegate, founded in 1987 by current CEO Stephen McDonnell, produces bacon, sausage, hot dogs and other natural and organic meat products. Applegate, partly owned by private equity outfit Swander Pace, reportedly put itself up for sale last winter, and Hormel had been rumored to be interested.

Applegate, which is expected to have $340 million in sales this year, will operate autonomously as a standalone subsidiary of Hormel’s refrigerated foods division. Applegate has about 100 employees in New Jersey, and the company will remain managed by the “core Applegate team plus a few new folks from the parent company who will relocate to Bridgewater,” Hormel said in a prepared statement.

“The Applegate team has built a great brand, and consumers can rest assured there will not be any changes to the way Applegate meats are raised and produced,” Ettinger said. Applegate’s products are promoted as humanely raised and antibiotic-free.

Hormel said the Applegate purchase is expected to close within 60 days. The deal is expected to be neutral to Hormel’s earnings per share in its fiscal year 2015, and be accretive to earnings by about 7 to 8 cents per share in fiscal 2016. The deal was announced after the stock market closed Tuesday.

In dollar value, the Applegate deal tops Hormel’s $700 million purchase in 2013 of the Skippy peanut butter brand from consumer products giant Unilever. Last year, Hormel shelled out $450 million for California-based CytoSport Holdings, maker of Muscle Milk and other nutritional supplements.

Hormel’s roots are in making such pork products as bacon and ham, as well as canned grocery staples such as Spam and Hormel Chili. The company is also the nation’s second-largest turkey processor and owner of the Jennie-O brand.

Until Hormel’s recent spate of deals, the company’s biggest acquisition was its 2001 buyout of turkey rival The Turkey Store for $334 million, or $446 million in today’s dollars.

There’s been a wave of acquisitions in the packaged food industry over the past year or so, as sales have stagnated and consumer tastes have shifted away somewhat from processed foods. General Mills, headquartered in Golden Valley, Minnesota, last year paid $820 million for Annie’s Inc., best known for its organic and natural macaroni and cheese.

Hormel has held up better than most U.S. packaged food companies, boosted by the trend among consumers toward protein-rich foods and the company’s solid Jennie-O business.

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