Canada: Bakery Humanity acquires Les Aliments 2000
The Champlain-backed investment platform now operates three companies in the bakery category
Bakery Humanity, the investment platform formed in February by Canada’s private equity firm Champlain Financial Corporation and labour fund Fondaction, has acquired artisanal manufacture of pizza dough Les Aliments 2000.
Denis Giroux, Sébastien Giroux, and Conrad Boivin founded Les Aliments 2000 in 1980 and the company has since diversified its products offering to include pie crusts, pizza dough balls, pizza dough and crust, pizzas with toppings and pizza sauce.
The products of Les Aliments 2000 are available in grocery chains, either under private label or under its own brands Pâte 2000, Pizza Artizan, PizzéDélic.
The Les Aliments 2000 acquisition is the second deal that Bakery Humanity closed since its inception in February. Champlain Financial together with Fondaction and a group of private investors formed Humanity Bakeries as an investment platform focused on the specialised baking and pastry industry in Quebec.
Upon inception, Bakery Humanity acquired Maison Isabelle, a Quebec-based company that specialises in the manufacture of four-quarter-style cakes that are sold across Canada.
Maison Isabelle has been in the market since 1990, and its president and shareholder Dominique Bohec was appointed president of Bakery Humanity. Bohec, a master baker and pastry chef, had acquired a stake in the company in 2015.
Bohec said the vision of Bakery Humanity is to build a dominant player in the industry. “Each business owned by Bakery Humanity will be operated independently and must have a sustainable development plan based on the environment, respect and social contribution,” he explained.
Both Les Aliments 2000 and Maison Isabelle join Canadian producer of puff pastries and croissants Boulangerie-Pâtisserie Dumas, a company acquired by Champlain in June last year, which has been added to the Humanity Bakery portfolio.
Bakery Humanity entered the market three months after Bond Bakery Brands, an investment platform launched in October by Nicolas Mulroney, Cameron Lorey, and Matthew Simon. The entrepreneurial trio debuted with the acquisition of two companies in the bakery category: Portofino Bakery and Pace Processing and Product Development.