Grupo Bimbo


Grupo Bimbo, S.A.B. de C.V., known as Bimbo, is a Mexican multinational bakery product manufacturing company headquartered in Mexico City, Mexico. It is the world's largest baking company and operates the largest bakeries in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Chile, Peru, Colombia, El Salvador and Spain, and has some of the widest distribution networks in Mexico and the United States. It was also the ninth largest company of Mexico by revenues in 2013.
Bimbo reported revenues of US$14.1 billion for 2014. It has more than 138,000 employees, 165 manufacturing plants and 2.5 million sales centers located in 32 countries in America, Europe and Asia. It operates more than 100 trademarks, among which are Entenmann's, Bimbo, Tia Rosa, Marinela, Wonder Bread, Barcel, Sara Lee, Mrs Baird's, Stroehmann, Ball Park buns, Oroweat and Arnold Bread. Bimbo has one of the widest distribution networks in the world, surpassing 52,000 routes Bimbo operates under a scheme of recurrent sales channels views, making three daily visits to the same establishment.
Bimbo has been listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange since 1980 and is a constituent of the IPC, the main benchmark index of Mexican stocks. In 2016, Forbes magazine ranked Grupo Bimbo at #986 on the Forbes Global 2000, an annual ranking of the top 2,000 public companies in the world.

History

The company Grupo Bimbo was started in Mexico in 1945 by Lorenzo Servitje, José T. Mata, Jaime Sendra, Jaime Jorba and Alfonso Velasco. Over fifteen years, under the leadership of Daniel Servitje, current Chairman of the Board and CEO of the Group, it has established itself as a global bakery company, reporting an increase in sales of US$4.67 billion in 2004 to US$10.712 billion, in 2011.
The first products launched into the market were cellophane-wrapped large and small white loaves of bread, rye bread and toasted bread. By late 1948, there were nine Bimbo products on the market. The line was expanded in 1952 with the production of the Donas del Osito started, along with a new line of buns: Bimbollos, Medias Noches and Colchones.
In 1949 the first depot outside Mexico City was inaugurated in the city of Puebla. In 1956, the Bimbo Occidente plant in Guadalajara started operations, with Roberto Servitje as its first General Manager. Four years later the Bimbo del Norte plant was inaugurated in the city of Monterrey, Nuevo León.

Expansion

After an administrative restructure and the launch of successful products such as Gansito and Submarinos Marinela, in 1972 the company installed the largest bakery in Latin America and one of the ten largest in the world, in Azcapotzalco, Mexico City.
With an important growth in the products and brands portfolio, such as Barcel, Marinela, Tía Rosa, Ricolino and Suandy, Don Roberto Servitje was appointed as CEO of Grupo Bimbo in 1979. A year later, the company started trading 15% of its shares on the Mexican Stock Exchange.
In 1984, the company started its expansion by exporting to the United States. Two years later, the company created a new organizational structure, known as Grupo Bimbo till today.
Later, in 1989, Bimbo Central America was created with the opening of a plant in Guatemala. Two years later with the addition of Bimbo Argentina, the Latin America Region Corporate structure was created and in 1995, the company opened two more plants in Chile and in Argentina.
With the appointment of Daniel Servitje as CEO of the company in 1997, the global growth strategy was strengthened. In 1998 the Group acquired the American bakery Mrs. Baird's, as well as Plus Vita and Pullman in Brazil, in 2001. A year later it acquired the West region baking business of George Weston Limited in the United States.
Grupo Bimbo acquired the Panrico bakery in Beijing in 2007, initiating its presence in the Asian market, expanding its operations in two continents.
On 2008, Grupo Bimbo bought Nutrella bakery in Brazil and in 2009 bought all of the George Weston Foods Ltd. in the United States, with the brands Arnold, Boboli, Brownberry, Entenmann's, Freihofer's, Stroehmann and Thomas’, plus 22 factories and 4,000 delivery trucks.
During 2011, the Group consolidated two acquisitions, becoming the largest baking company in the world. In September, Grupo Bimbo bought Fargo in Argentina, while in October, it closed on the acquisition of Sara Lee's operations in Spain and Portugal, renaming the unit Bimbo Iberia. Thus the company managed to unify the Bimbo brand that operated independently in both countries.
Shortly after, in February 2014, Grupo Bimbo announced the acquisition of Canada Bread. The transaction, valued at C$1.83 billion, enabled the Group to reaffirm its position as the world's leading baking company by extending its distribution in North America and entering the market of United Kingdom, this last one through the New York Bakery Co. brand, a leading manufacturer of bagels in Europe. In the same year, the company acquired Supan, a baking company in Ecuador, an operation that led the company to reinforce its presence in America and the world.
In June 2015, Bimbo was being considered as a possible buyer of Hostess Brands, the manufacturer of Twinkies valued at US$2 billion. However, a month later Hostess Brands' owners cancelled its plans to sell the company after failing to receive any offers.

Relevant acquisitions

Bimbo's Management Council is organized as follows:
Bimbo has several brands, which vary from country to country.
Country/RegionNumber of brandsExamples
Canada6Villaggio, Dempster's, POM, Vachon
USA29Sara Lee, Mrs Baird's, Earth Grains
Mexico16Bimbo, Marinela, Barcel
Central America13Monarca, La Mejor, Ideal
Latin America26Pullman, Plus Vita, Nutrella
Europe2Eagle, Bimbo
United Kingdom1New York Bakery Co'
Asia2Bimbo, Harvest Gold

Name

The name Bimbo was first coined in 1945. The main hypothesis is that it resulted from the combination of Bingo and the Disney film Bambi. Later, the founders discovered that children in Italian are called bimbo, while in Hungarian, the word means bud and the phoneme used in China to name it sounds very similar to bread.

Mascot and trademark

The corporate pet, a small polar bear, resulted from the drawing that came to Mr. Jaime Jorba in a Christmas card, and whom Anita Mata, wife of Jaime Sendra, dressed with a white apron and a chef's hat, given a loaf of bread under his arm. The company has made a few failed attempts to change this mascot with some characters like Gruba, a character from the Olocoons franchise.
The Bimbo trademark was recognized as "famous" by the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property on April 23, 2010 and is one of the 27 selected brands that have reached this category in the country. In 2014, the Brand Footprint by Kantar World Panel positioned it in seventh place in the food industry in the world.

Net sales