Grupo Bimbo Acquires Canadian Snack Company

Canada Bread Company, a recently-acquired subsidiary of Mexico’s Grupo Bimbo, is buying Vachon Inc., the bakery division of Canadianfood company Saputo, Inc., for $120 million in cash. Canada Bread executives say no changes are planned for Vachon, which produces a line of venerable snack cakes for the Quebec market. Saputo says the sale of the bakery unit, which accounted for only two percent of sales, will allow the company to focus on its much larger dairy business. The deal is the latest in a string of Grupo Bimbo acquisitions stretching back five years, and totaling more than $5 billion.