Colruyt buys industrial bakery

Belgian supermarket group Colruyt is continuing its focus on vertical integration: the retailer has acquired all the shares of industrial bakery Roelandt Group, which it will house in a newly created bread division within the group.

Full control

Roelandt Group is one of Belgium’s most important industrial bakeries, active in the production of fresh, pre-baked and frozen bread, sandwiches and pastries, which it also sells to a wide range of business customers. The family-owned company has collaborated with Colruyt for a while, even establishing a joint venture bakery in Lokeren ten years ago.

With the complete acquisition of the Roelandt Group, Colruyt wants to focus further on a vertical integration of its fresh products. The newly created division Colruyt Group Fine Food Bread will centralise the entire value chain for bread and pastries within its own production facilities in Lokeren and Zele. This allows the retailer to take full control of its bread supply chain, offering a range of benefits in terms of efficiency, innovation and cost control.

The focus on vertical integration is a tried and tested strategy for Colruyt, which also owns a coffee roasting plant, a wine bottling facility, cheese cutting plant and production units for meat products and salad spreads. Bread, however, is a special case: the retailer’s founder Franz Colruyt started out as a baker, almost a hundred years ago.