Sara Lee has had a rich history, (no pun intended) that started with Nathan Cummings' 1939 purchase of the C.D. Kenny Company, a small wholesale distributor of sugar, coffee and tea in Baltimore.

In 1946 the company joined the New York Stock Exchange and eight years later, they changed their name to Consolidated Foods Corporation.

In 1956, Consolidated acquired Kitchens of Sara Lee and entered the retail food business through their other purchase of 34 Piggly Wiggly supermarkets.

In 1962 they took control of Jonker Fris, a Dutch producer of canned goods, which launched the corporation’s first full-scale overseas acquisition.

Expansion continued in 1966, when Consolidated bought Oxford Chemical, the corporation’s first non-food company, and E. Kahn's Sons Company, a meat processor and distributor. Consolidated Foods’ sales topped the $1 billion mark the next year.

Acquisitions continued with the purchases of Aris Gloves (later renamed Aris Isotoner) in 1969, Hillshire Farm and Rudy’s Farm in 1971 and Erdal, a Dutch company later re-named Intradal, that focused on personal care products.

In 1978, the corporation acquired Chef Pierre, a manufacturer and distributor of frozen prepared desserts, and made an initial investment in Douwe Egberts, a Dutch coffee and grocery company.

This was followed the next year with several acquisitions, including Hanes, a hosiery manufacturer; Superior Tea and Coffee Company, in the foodservice industry; and Gallo Salame, Inc., manufacturer of Italian dry sausage products.

By the 1980s, Consolidated Foods’ annual sales reached $5 billion. In 1984, they acquired Jimmy Dean Meats, as well as Nicholas Kiwi Limited, an Australian-based manufacturer and marketer of personal, household, shoe and car care products and home medicines.

In 1985, the corporation changed its name to Sara Lee Corporation to reflect the consumer marketing orientation of the company and the high-quality, well-known branded products it marketed throughout the world.

They kept rolling when Sara Lee acquired Wechsler Coffee, Chock full o'Nuts and Continental Coffee. Two years later, Sara Lee acquired Hills Bros., MJB and Chase & Sanborn, the retail coffee brands from Nestlé USA and Café Pilão, the No. 1 coffee company in Brazil.

In 2001, Sara Lee acquired St. Louis-based The Earthgrains Company, the No. 2 player in the U.S. bakery market

2002 featured the debut of the Senseo coffeemaker by Douwe Egberts and Philips Electronics in the Netherlands. In the same year, Douwe Egberts introduced the Cafitesse line of liquid coffee systems, Sara Lee’s proprietary liquid coffee concentrate system. In 2003, Douwe Egberts coffee celebrated its 250th anniversary.

In February 2005, the company began executing a bold and ambitious multi-year plan to transform Sara Lee into a company focused on its food, beverage, and household and body care businesses around the world. To support that focus, Sara Lee announced plans to sell 40 percent of the company’s properties in apparel, European packaged meats, U.S. retail coffee and direct selling units.

According to their most recent annual report, Sara Lee produced revenues of $8.68 billion with net income of $338 million. They have 21,000 employees.

On Local Cable, Sara Lee ran 147,432 spots in the last 12 months. The biggest months were August (19,529) and September (20,771). 59.41% of all spots were run on Local Cable.

Radio started out a little slow for Sara Lee, but spiked up at the end of summer. In the last 12 months, Sara Lee ran only 24,673 commercials on radio with the biggest month being August with 8,098 ads.

On TV, Sara Lee ran 76,047 spots in the last 12 months with the big push in August totalling 9,169 spots.

POSTED: February 20, 2012