Milling & Baking News - July 9, 2013 - 9

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Pepperidge Farm expanding one
plant and closing another
NORWALK, CONN. — Pepperidge
Farm Inc. late last month got the ball
rolling on one expansion project while
also announcing it will be closing the
doors at another location.
An increasingly consolidated and
competitive baking industry led Pepperidge Farm to announce on June 27
that it will close its baking facility in
Aiken, S.C.
The nearly 40-year-old plant will be
closed in phases, starting in September with complete closure expected by
March 2014.
“The bakery industry in the United
States is becoming increasingly consolidated and competitive,” said Bill
Livingstone, senior vice-president of
supply chain and operations. “In order to continue to grow and flourish,
Pepperidge Farm needs to be innovative and agile, with the most cost-effective manufacturing facilities.
“We recently reviewed our operations and identified excess capacity
in our bakery network. As a result,
we evaluated a number of different

options to address this. We made the
difficult decision to close our plant
in Aiken. It is a very good bakery
with great people, but it has limited
production capabilities, and we’ve
recently discontinued a product that
accounted for a significant amount of
its volume.”
The discontinued product was Goldfish bread, which was introduced in
the summer of 2011.
Other products made at the bakery include Pepperidge Farm Italian,
Farmhouse, Rye and Deli Flats bread.
The majority of bread production is
expected to be shifted from Aiken to
Pepperidge’s plant in Lakeland, Fla.,
the company said.
In addition to Lakeland and Aiken,
Pepperidge operates bread and cake
plants in Bloomfield, Conn.; Downers
Grove, Ill.; East Brunswick, N.J.; Denver, Pa.; and Downingtown, Pa. The
company also has biscuit and cracker plants in Willard, Ohio; Denver,
Pa.; and Richmond, Utah; and frozen dough plants in Downingtown,

Twinkies to return on July 15
KANSAS CITY — Hostess Brands,
L.L.C. is set to relaunch Twinkies and
other snack cakes beginning July 15.
Twinkies, Mini Muffins, CupCakes,
Ho Hos, Zingers and Suzy Q’s were
among the brands acquired by HB
Holdings L.L.C., an affiliate of private
equity groups Apollo Global Management L.L.C. and Metropoulos & Co.,
for $410 million back in March .
The acquisition also included five
plants, four of which — in Columbus,
Ga.; Schiller Park, Ill.; Indianapolis;
and Emporia, Kas., — are in the process of being reopened. HB Holdings
also moved Hostess headquarters
back to Kansas City from Irving, Texas.
Rich Seban, president of Hostess, told the Associated Press that the

company now will deliver to warehouses that supply retailers, rather
than delivering directly to stores. The

move will expand the snack cake maker’s reach, he said, allowing it to deliver to dollar stores and nearly all convenience stores located in the United

Gavilon buys ﬁve grain facilities
OMAHA — Gavilon Grain, L.L.C. has
acquired five grain elevators in the
Rio Grande Valley area of South Texas
with combined upright storage capacity of 5.4 million bus. Gavilon said
it will use the facilities to store and
handle yellow corn, sorghum and soybeans purchased from area farmers.
bakingbusiness.com / world-grain.com

“We look forward to serving producers from Willacy, Cameron and
Hidalgo counties and will work
hard to earn their business,” said
Cris Brown, director of South Texas
and Mexico, North American Grain,
at Gavilon. “The South Texas operations will complement Gavilon’s 15

Business

Pa., and Richmond, Utah.
The announcement of the bread
plant closing came a week after Pepperidge Farm broke ground on a
$93 million expansion of its facility
in Willard. As part of the two-year
expansion project, Pepperidge will
add a new Goldfish cracker production line and 227,000 square feet of
space.
Irene Chang Britt, president of Pepperidge, said the expansion was being
made to keep pace with the consumer
demand for the company’s top-selling
Goldfish crackers.
“Sales of Goldfish crackers have
been growing consistently during the
past five years, and it is critical we expand our production capacity to stay
ahead of this demand,” she said.
In addition to the production
line, the expansion to the existing
355,000-square-foot site will include
new ingredient processing facilities,
additional warehouse space and refurbished employee facilities, the
company said.
Construction is expected to be completed in the summer of 2014, with
Goldfish production scheduled to
commence in May 2015. MBN
States. Previously, Hostess only was
able to reach about a third of the United States’ 150,000 convenience stores,
he said.
Another change will be a new recipe for CupCakes, which now will use
dark cocoa instead of milk chocolate,
giving the snack cakes a richer, darker
appearance, Mr. Seban said. He added the changes were made to improve
the cakes, not to cut costs.
Other future changes Mr. Seban
mentioned were an expanded product line-up that may include snack
cakes with different textures and different flavors.
“We can have some fun with that
mixture,” he said.
Hostess also plans to tap into such
trends as gluten-free, added fiber, low
sugar and low sodium, he said. MBN
facilities in Texas and Mexico, which
supply grain to area feedlots and
animal processors.”
The acquisition includes the purchase of elevators in Harlingen,
Raymondville, Sebastian and San
Perlita, Texas, from Willacy Co-op
and one facility in Progreso Lakes,
Texas, that was previously leased by
Willacy Co-op. MBN
Milling & Baking News July 9, 2013 / 9

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Milling & Baking News - July 9, 2013

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