US: Hostess Beefsteak – packaged rye
Amid the huge $860m sell-off of Hostess assets in April, 2013, Grupo Bimbo secured the purchase of packaged rye bread brand Beefsteak.
Bimbo paid $31.9m for the bread brand – outbidding Flowers Foods that snapped up a large remainder of Hostess’ bread business, including Wonder Bread, for $360m. United States Bakery paid $30.9m for four bread brands – Sweetheart, Eddy’s, Standish Farms and Grandma Emilie’s.
The move to buy Beefsteak came as part of Bimbo’s wider US expansion strategy in which it pledged to pump $1bn into the market by 2015.