Flowers Foods facts for kids
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Headquarters in Thomasville, Georgia
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| Public | |
| Traded as | NYSE: FLO S&P 400 Component |
| Industry | Packaged bakery products |
| Founded | 1919 |
| Headquarters | Thomasville, Georgia, U.S. |
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Key people
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George E. Deese (Non-executive Chairman of the Board); A. Ryals McMullian (President and CEO) |
| Products | Wonder Bread, Nature's Own, Whitewheat, Sunbeam, Mrs. Freshley's, Blue Bird, Mi Casa, Cobblestone Mill, Tastykake, Dave's Killer Bread |
| Revenue | $3.95 billion (2018) |
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Number of employees
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9,200 (2018) |
Flowers Foods is a big company that makes and sells many kinds of bakery foods. Its main office is in Thomasville, Georgia. The company runs 47 bakeries across the United States. These bakeries make popular items like bread, buns, rolls, snack cakes, pastries, and tortillas.
Flowers Foods sells its products in two main ways. Some fresh items, like bread and buns, are delivered directly to stores. This covers the East, South, Southwest, West, and Northwest parts of the U.S. Other products, like frozen snack cakes, are sent to large warehouses for stores all over the country. The company owns well-known brands such as Mrs. Freshley's, which makes snack cakes, and European Bakers, known for specialty breads and rolls. Flowers Foods has grown a lot over the years by buying other bakeries and food companies. By 2013, it became the second-largest baking company in the United States.
How Flowers Foods Started
The story of Flowers Foods began in 1919. Two brothers, William Howard and Joseph Hampton Flowers, opened the Flowers Baking Company. They started their business in Thomasville, Georgia.
In 1937, they bought their first other bakery, called Tally Maid. A few years later, in 1942, Flowers Baking Company became one of the first bakeries in the U.S. to make Sunbeam Bread. You might know Sunbeam Bread by its famous picture of Little Miss Sunbeam.
As the company grew, it bought more bakeries in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia in the 1960s. In 1968, Flowers Baking Company became a public company. This means people could buy shares of the company. Its name changed to Flowers Industries. Less than a year later, its shares were listed on the American Stock Exchange. By 1982, the company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), which is a very big stock market. The next year, Flowers Industries was even listed on the Fortune 500 list, which names the largest companies in the U.S.
Growing Through Buying Other Companies
Flowers Foods has continued to grow by buying other bakeries and food companies. This helps them offer more products and reach more customers.
In 1996, Flowers bought the Keebler Company and Mrs. Smith's Pies. Later, in 2001, Flowers sold its part of Keebler to the Kellogg Company. The remaining parts of Flowers, which were Flowers Bakeries and Mrs. Smith's Bakeries, became a new company called Flowers Foods.
In 2002, Flowers Foods bought Ideal Baking Company and Bishop Baking Company. These purchases helped the company sell its products in new areas like Arkansas, Missouri, and parts of Tennessee.
A big change happened in 2011 when Flowers Foods bought Tastykake. This company makes popular snack cakes and helped Flowers reach customers in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. In 2012, they bought Lepage Bakeries in Maine. They also got rights to sell Sara Lee and Earthgrains brands in California and Oklahoma City.
One of their biggest purchases was in 2013. Flowers Foods bought most of the bread brands from Hostess Brands. This included the very famous Wonder Bread! They also bought 20 closed Hostess bakeries.
More recently, in 2015, Flowers Foods bought Dave's Killer Bread. This is a popular brand known for its organic bread. They also bought Alpine Valley Bread Co., another organic bakery. And they got the rights to the Roman Meal trademark for bread and rolls in North America.
At the end of 2018, Flowers Foods bought Canyon Bakehouse. This company specializes in gluten-free bread. By this time, Flowers Foods had bought 16 companies since 2003, showing how much they have grown!
See also
