Bimbo Bakery, the Mexican company that bought Canada Bread
from Maple Leaf Foods earlier this year, is buying the Vachon family business
from Saputo Inc.
The Vachon family business is famous for Joe Louis snack
cake.
Saputo acted as a Quebec-based white knight when it bought
the business for $283 million in 1999 to keep it under provincial control.
At one point, Saputo added Dare Biscuits of Kitchener to
that part of its business, but the Saputo family clearly wants to concentrate
on cheese and other dairy products, so it sold Dare.
In 2012, it took a $125-million writedown in the value of
the Vachon business.
With sales of about $130 million, it accounted for about
five per cent of Saputo’s annual revenues.
Bimbo Bakery has bought its way into the top echelons in the
North American baked-goods market.
It bought George Weston Ltd.’s business in the United States
in 2009 and Sara Lee in 2011.
