Lantmännen Unibake: acquires first bakery in the USA

Horsens / DK. (lu) Lantmännen Unibake, a leading European supplier of frozen bread products, will expand globally in the coming year (see bakenet:eu on Thursday, 2008-02-28) and now is taking an important step with the acquisition of the industrial bakery Euro-Bake in the USA.

The acquisition will give Lantmännen Unibake production capability in the US for the first time, and at the same time enhance the company´s existing sales efforts in the United States. Lantmännen Unibake produces Danish pastry, croissants and fresh and frozen bread products. All of the products it currently sells in the USA are shipped in from the company´s bakeries in Europe.

«The demand for our products has risen sharply in recent years in the United States», says Lantmännen Unibake CEO Bent Pultz Larsen. «The acquisition fulfills an important link in the long-term growth strategy for Lantmännen Unibake by enhancing our product offering, building important bridges for us into the North American market and ensuring that we can remain competitive».

The acquired bakery is the privately owned bakery Euro-Bake of St. Petersburg (Florida). Euro-Bake specializes in high-quality, Artisan breads such as ciabatta buns, baguettes and focaccia bread. It has almost 200 employees and a turnover of over 30 million USD in annual revenue. Its facility in St. Petersburg is a 5.000 square meter bakery built in 2006 with three new production lines. Lantmännen Unibake sales rose by nearly 25 percent in the US last year, and demand for Danish Pastries and French croissants is on the rise.

«In the coming year, we will be considering further acquisitions of this kind that can help bring Lantmännen Unibake closer to the markets we think are strategically interesting and that can add value for our customers», says Bent Pultz Larsen. «It is our goal to be entrepreneurial, to provide an even broader range of bread products and to develop a global bakery concern that will make our employees proud». The new acquisition comes only a few weeks after Lantmännen Unibake made its latest acquisition of the fastfood bakery Baco Oy in Finland.