Bimbo bread!

[Victor Steinbok]

Bimbo bread has been around for quite some time. I remember us joking
about it in a law school class--Bimbo was a litigant in a major case,
although I can't remember what the subject was (and this was already
after they've been around for a decade). It also has come up with
culinary reviewers who try to downplay the name which has no connection
to the usual slang, although the parent company (or, at least, the US
subsidiary) tries to mask ownership by pushing the consumer-level brands
(if your parent company were Bimbo, would you do it differently?).
Emeril Lagase is/was a "spokesman". Grupo Bimbo (from Mexico?) bought
into the US market in the mid-1990s and renamed the resulting subsidiary
Bimbo Bakeries USA. In the process they decimated (following
acquisition) previously dominant brands Oroweat, Arnold, Entenmann’s and
Boboli. The only reason I noticed it at the time was because so many
Oroweat/Entemann's outlet stores disappeared (Oroweat and Arnold, like
so many other brands, were regional representations of the same product
already). I don't think they actually lost market share but rather
changed the profile of their products, killing off, shrinking or
replacing some traditional brands that simply could not compete in the
changing market (anti-carbo diets, etc.).

VS-)

On 4/6/2011 9:10 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> I'm sure I would have noticed a commercial for this product if I had
> ever seen it before tonight, but checking the web, I see it must have
> been around for a while:
> http://www.bimbobakeriesusa.com/our_brands/bimbo.html
>
> They want us to pronounce it "Beembo".  Fat chance of that.
>
> Has the Bimbo bear been around all these years without my running into him?
>
> LH

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