Grupo Bimbo: strengthens European business with Vel Pitar

Râmnicu Vâlcea / RO. (eb) As the world’s largest bakery group, Mexico’s Grupo Bimbo S.A.B. de C.V. continues to work on its portfolio. According to the international press, the group has just strengthened its European business with the acquisition of the Romanian bakery group Vel Pitar SA. The company has its headquarters in Vâlcea County in the Wallachia region with Râmnicu Vâlcea as the county capital. Romanian industry insiders estimate the value of the transaction at a good 200 million euros. This estimate may be wrong. The same industry experts also estimated the number of employees at around 1,900, while the bakery group itself lists around 2,500 employees on its well-maintained and up-to-date homepage.

Seller of Vel Pitar SA is the US investment fund Broadhurst. Administrator is New Century Holdings (NCH Capital), which also carried out the transaction for NCH Romania. Vel Pitar is, according to its own information and translated from Romanian, one of the largest producers of bakery products and one of the most important players in the production and distribution of bakery products in Romania.

The group was created in 2001 through the merger of four companies in the bakery and confectionery sector: «Mopariv» Vâlcea, «Berceni» Bucharest, «Granpan» Tecuci and «Panegrano» Cluj. In the following years Vel Pitar expanded its activities and acquired other companies with the same profile, so that today the group has ten production plants in nine major cities in Romania, employing a total of more than 2,500 people. With traditional recipes and products, Vel Pitar reaches over one million customers every day.

Carefully selected ingredients and a strong commitment to quality contribute to its success every day. The investment in modern, innovative technologies and the management respective production according to the highest European standards have already brought the company numerous awards.

Grupo Bimbo S.A.B. de C.V., the new parent company of Vel Pitar SA, is the leading and largest bakery company in the world and a major player in the snacks segment. Grupo Bimbo counts 203 bakeries and other manufacturing facilities and more than 1,600 distribution centers strategically located in 33 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa continents. Its main product lines include sliced bread, rolls, pastries, cakes, cookies, toast, English muffins, bagels, tortillas and flatbreads, and savory snacks. Grupo Bimbo manufactures more than 10,000 products and has one of the largest direct sales networks in the world, with (as of 2022/10/29) more than 3.3 million points of sale, 55,000 routes and 138,000 employees.