Bonduelle, the French multinational behind a host of private label frozen vegetable brands, as well as leading brands Géant Vert (Green Giant) and Arctic Garden, has purchased a new large-scale factory in Canada which will grant it a share of the country’s frozen-vegetable market, lsa-conso.fr reports.
Since arriving in Canada in 2006, Bonduelle has grown by 132 per cent in terms of turnover, a figure which now stands at €124 million. With its acquisition of what was a Sobeys production facility in Lethbridge, Alberta, the company’s hold on the Canadian frozen-vegetable sector will stand at between 85 and 90 per cent, as, from a supply chain perspective, it will allow it to penetrate the west-Canada market.
From a Canadian point of view, the company now occupies “virtually the whole market,” it says, and has stressed that the remaining ten per cent it does not possess is made up of products it itself does not produce.
Bonduelle has invested €250,000 in the factory, and anticipates that it will have generated this figure in profits after about 18 months or two years.
“With this new structure, we can be closer to our distributor clients,” said Bonduelle head of the Americas, Daniel Vielfaure.
At present, Canada represents 11 per cent of the company’s turnover, behind France, the US, and Germany.
© 2015 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Peter Donnelly. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
