New French Bakery is shutting down both of its Minneapolis production facilities, a move that will eliminate 166 jobs starting Dec. 29. The closures come just weeks after a Toronto-based company quietly picked up the two plants for a combined price under $2.5 million, far less than the bakery’s wholesale operation once generated in annual sales.
The job losses, which will hit technicians, managers and sanitation employees, were disclosed in a letter sent to Minnesota officials, according to the Star Tribune. The two facilities set to close sit on 26th Avenue S. and Kasota Avenue in Minneapolis, both longtime hubs for a bakery that once supplied grocery stores and food-service companies across the country with artisan breads.
FGF Brands, a family-owned Canadian bakery company based in Toronto, bought the 26th Avenue site for $598,865 and the Kasota Avenue facility for roughly $1.9 million in September, per the same Star Tribune report. The company is known for owning the Stonefire brand, which makes naan bread and other products, and operates more than 30 facilities worldwide, according to a METRO Inc. announcement detailing an earlier FGF deal. That same announcement noted FGF also agreed to acquire Première Moisson Group’s commercial bakery facility in Baie-D’Urfé for $90 million, underscoring the company’s recent pace of acquisitions.
A Minneapolis Bakery’s Long, Winding Ownership Road
New French Bakery’s story began in 1995, when baker Peter Kelsey founded the company. By 2013, Kelsey had built it into a 300-employee operation generating millions in revenue, the report notes. But after struggling to borrow $6 million from banks to fund an additional production line, Kelsey sold the business that year to Arbor Investments for millions of dollars…