Milling & Baking News - February 23, 2021 - 11

Business

The Bakery Cos. rebranding as
Crown Bakeries in makeover
expansion of its senior management
team and the establishment of loftier,
longer-term goals that sparked the rebranding initiative.
Specifically, Chicago-based Arbor
Investments recapitalized the business
and took a majority stake in October
2019. The bakery's founders, Cordia
and her husband, Tom Harrington, remain invested, while Yianny and brother George Caparos, who collaborated
with Arbor on a previous successful
baking venture, also became partners.
In a short period, the new entity has
made two strategic acquisitions: Steck
Wholesale Foods, North Sioux City,
SD, last March, and in Smyrna, Ga.,
with a laminated and sweet goods
plant from Specialty Bakers in May.
And more are likely to follow, noted
Chris Tuffin, partner with Arbor Investments.
" We're going to continue to be active
on the merger-and-acquisition front,
looking at businesses that add new
capabilities and potentially adjacent
product lines while also searching for
new businesses that expand our footprint as a national platform, " he said.
Crown Bakeries' product portfolio
now includes fresh and frozen bread,
buns, biscuits, English muffins, croissants and other laminated products,
sweet goods, frozen dough and more.
Yianny Caparos, president, pointed
out the company's latest acquisitions,
along with spending tens of millions
of dollars in new equipment and
building a new thaw-and-serve laminated baked foods bakery in Nashville, allowed Crown Bakeries to take
several steps toward achieving its vision of becoming the leading breakfast
carrier provider across all food industry channels.
From a sales perspective, George
Caparos, chief development officer,
pointed out the rebrand reinforces the
company's customer-centric focus to
make everyone feel like they have a
special status.
" We want to portray the customer
as king, " he said. " We want to make
sure that our customers know that
we're going to do everything and anything possible to give them the products they need. "
Operationally, Yianny Caparos said,
it's all about responding to requests
" at warp speed " with its comprehensive and expanding product portfolio.
bakingbusiness.com / world-grain.com

" It's all about being flexible, nimble
and quick to action, " he said. " That's
our motto. We want to treat everybody
like royalty and make them the best at
what they do. "
Currently, the company operates
six bakeries in Tennessee, Georgia and
South Dakota - and all have new
titles under the rebranding initiative.
" Under Crown Bakeries, it shows
that we are all one team under a single
name, " Ms. Harrington observed. " We

'We're going to continue to
be active on the merger-andacquisition front.'

CROWN BAKERIES

Continued from Page 1

occurred in June 2019 while dining during an American Bakers Association
meeting with Yianny Caparos and Greg
Purcell, Arbor's co-founder and CEO,
whom she had known for 20 years.
Months later, the deal was completed.
" I learned about the details of their
successful work together, and it was
just magic, " she said. " They really understood the industry and the capital
that's needed to make the investments
needed to keep the bakeries running
smoothly, and to grow. "
The key, she added, involved having the resources to take Crown Bakeries to a new level while maintaining

- Chris Tuffin,
Arbor Investments

want all associates to be connected together, even though they work in different states. "
The unification also shows how the
company's various production facilities not only serve dedicated customers such as quick-service restaurants
and other foodservice outlets but also
in-store bakeries, convenience stores,
retailers, contract manufacturers and
foodservice distributors. Ms. Harrington indicated that its aspiration is
to become one of the largest specialty
baking companies in the country.
" When we receive a special request from customers, they just need
to know that Crown Bakeries has the
plants to handle whatever they need, "
she said. " We react quickly and give
them service like they're the only
customer that we have, and we handle things like a teeny-tiny business
would - immediately. On the other
side of it, we have the scale, power and
the resources with the most automated equipment in the world, including
the latest in packaging technology, to
partner with the largest food companies in the world. "
It certainly didn't take much time
to form the new partnership. Ms. Harrington recalled the initial conversations

career advancement opportunities for
its 700 employees.
" With this partnership, we have the
best of both worlds, " Ms. Harrington
said. " We have the capital that we
needed, and we have the culture of
taking care of our people. "
In addition to Arbor's support, it
quickly became apparent that the
Caparos brothers and Ms. Harrington
brought complementary strengths
from an operations and customer service level.
" Cordia has so many different
business relationships, and the relationships we have are different from
hers, " Yianny Caparos said. " We fit so
well together because we both bring a
wider network of potential customers
to the plate. "
Together, he added, the parties are
aligned on where to take the new business and how to ambitiously grow
revenues in the next few years.
" The common denominator between Cordia and all of us is custom
baking for customers, " Yianny Caparos said. " We'll make the investments
in assets to partner with a national or
global brand, and they know we're
putting everything behind it to make
it successful. " MBN
Milling & Baking News

February 23, 2021 / 11

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Milling & Baking News - February 23, 2021

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