(
)
Talk about some serious dough.
After no other bidders emerged to challenge it, Flowers Foods is set to snare Wonder and a slew of other bread brands being sold by bankrupt Hostess Brands for $360 million.
The deal will give Flowers, based in Thomasville, Ga., a lot more flour power on store shelves — and a shot at overtaking Mexico baking giant Grupo Bimbo, the nation’s biggest bread maker.
Besides Wonder, the bid includes Nature’s Pride, Butternut and Merita, as well as 20 bakeries.
Flowers, the nation’s second biggest baker by sales, will go up against Bimbo today in a bankruptcy auction for Hostess’s Beefsteak rye brand, sources said.
Flowers is also “hot to buy” Hostess’ Drake’s cakes business. Rival suitors have until March 11 to outbid Little Debbie maker McKee Foods for Drake’s.
A Flowers spokesman declined comment.
Bimbo has a leading 12 percent market share in bread production, which includes snacks and cakes. Flowers has a 7.9 percent share, while Hostess had 4.9 percent before its liquidation, according to IBISWorld market research.
With the Wonder deal, the low-priced white bread market will narrow to two players.
A research report from Stephens Inc. said that Flowers’ “scale, product mix and a more rational competitive environment could allow bread margins to rise to the mid-teens, up from 9 to 10 percent.” Translation: Flowers will raise prices.
Up until now, Flowers — the maker of Tastykakes and Nature’s Own bread — has been strongest in the Southeast. Flowers has little bread presence in the Northeast.
Flowers shares rose 2.3 percent to $28.32, after earlier hitting a 52-week high of $29.55.