Running Down a Dream

By Anonymous

Harlan Bakeries is chasing a dream of its own: to become an even bigger and better baking company.

It seems like decades ago for brothers Hugh and Doug Harlan, but in reality, it was only a few years back when frozen unbaked and fully baked bagels made up between 70 percent and 80 percent of the company’s sales.

Through strategic acquisitions and internal growth since 2000. Harlan Bakeries has transformed itself from a specialty bagel producer into a major, diversified wholesale baking operation with a full une of products ranging from frozen pies, cakes, breads, and other desserts to frozen muffins, cookie dough and, yes, bagels for its contract manufacturer customers, hundreds of in-store bakeries and thousands of national foodservice operations.

Perhaps its boldest move was the 2005 purchase of the assets of Meyer’s Bakeries business in Hope, Ark., and Wichita, Kan. Marian’s acquisition of the S60 million operation last year added thousands of much-needed stock-keeping units (SKUs) to Harlan’s product portfolio – everything from brown ‘n’ serve dinner rolls to breadsticks, hearth rolls, English muffins, energy bars and conventional hamburger and hot dog buns.

“It’s making us more of a one-stop shop.” says Dennis Daniels, Marian’s chief operating officer. “It also allows us to anchor some of the existing customers that we had shared with Meyer’s. It makes us a stronger supplier to them.”

In addition, Southern Bakeries now operates Meyer’s extensive fresh distribution, which is much more complex than Marian’s line of frozen, longer shelf life baked goods that are shipped via foodservice distributors and other carriers. Overall, fresh sales account for 15-20 percent of the company’s business.

“We have it set as a stand-alone separate business.” explains Doug Marian, executive vice president. “We want to understand the business better before we do a full integration There are a lot of complexities that were new to us on the fresh side and getting a good understanding of that operating facility.” Founded by the Marian brothers and their father, Hal, in 1991. the company initially was known throughout parts of the Midwest for its “Bigger Better Bagels” in the freezer case. However, Harlan Bakeries added to its regional retail business and began a path of rapid, double- digit growth by producing products for some of the nation’s largest foodservice chains and retail shops

Since 1997, combined annual sales have risen tenfold to more than $250 million. Harlan Bakeries has relied on a number of strategic acquisitions of small- to mid-scale wholesale baking companies to propel sales and broaden its ability to serve national accounts. In 2000, the company bought Kyger Bakery, Inc.. a Midwestern producer of cakes, pie shells, and meringue and cream pies. Simply by leveraging its new line of desserts against its existing customer base, Marian Bakeries tripled the business to more than $20 million in less than two years.

Copyright Stagnito Publishing Dec 2006

(c) 2006 National Provisioner. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.