At its annual Meet the Management Analyst Day in New York Tuesday, Sara Lee presented itself as holding company-turned operating company with a string of successes in growing, high-margin businesses and a handful of struggling ones in need of work. The maker of Hillshire Farm sausage and Senseo coffee touted them its biggest successes — North American meats and European coffee — and laid out cases for fixing its problem areas, including International Bakery, North American Bakery and North American Foodservice.
Rumors swirled in July that the Downers Grove-based company was shopping its bread business, but North American CEO C.J. Fraleigh underscored that Sara Lee is committed to fixing it.
“We’re gaining share in almost all regions,” he said, adding that the company won a private label account with a “strategic customer,” likely Wal-Mart, which will result in additional shelf space for its Sara Lee-branded breads as well. The bread business has “improved from a money-losing proposition six to seven years ago to where it is today,” Fraleigh said, alluding to the fact it’s making money now. Still, Sara Lee isn’t satisfied, and it moved the North American bakery under Fraleigh’s direct supervision in the fourth fiscal quarter ended July to improve its results.
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