Flower Foods Divides Business in Fresh Bakery and Specialty/ Snacking Units

Flowers Foods, one of the largest producers of fresh packaged bakery foods in the US, announces new organizational structure, created by establishing two business units (BUs): Fresh Bakery and Specialty/Snacking, and realigns key leadership roles.

The company will transition to the new structure over the next several months with full implementation expected during fiscal 2018. The current company’s structure is Direct-Store-Delivery and Warehouse. It will remain available until the new structure is in place.

Allen L. Shiver, Flowers Foods President and CEO, explains: “Strategically dividing our business into Fresh Bakery and Specialty/Snacking will reinvigorate each unit and enable them to take actions to drive growth for their respective brand portfolios and product categories. We also are realigning our leadership structure to better address the changing consumer and operating environment, and drive to be a more efficient and effective organization. I am confident our new structure will allow us to achieve our strategic objectives and deliver enhanced value for shareholders.”

The Fresh Bakery BU will include Flowers’ core and growth bread brands, including Nature’s Own, Wonder, Dave’s Killer Bread, and Cobblestone Bread Company. Fresh Bakery’s mission will be to drive brand growth and profitability through incremental innovation, consistent execution, and cost-efficiency.

The Snacking/Specialty BU will consist of Flowers’ product lines outside of the retail bread aisle. This BU will be responsible for the company’s snack cake brands, Tastykake and Mrs. Freshley’s, specialty bread brands including Alpine Valley, and Flowers’ foodservice business. Reflecting the opportunity to grow in these underdeveloped categories, the mission of the Snacking/Specialty BU will be to drive brand growth and profitability through new product innovation and build scale in growing categories.

The new structure also provides for centralized marketing, sales, supply chain, shared-service/administrative, and corporate strategy functions, each with clearly defined roles and responsibilities.

Flower Foods had sales of USD3.9bn in 2016.