喬治韋斯頓公司

George Weston Limited is committed to creating value for its shareholders and to the belief that it should participate along with its more than 119,000 employees throughout its businesses in supporting the communities in which it operates. Key Dates: Weston establishes a bread and cake bakery in Toronto, the Model Bakery. Weston reenters the bread business with the purchase of the H.C. Tomlin bread bakery. Garfield Weston incorporates the company as George Weston Limited and takes it public. The purchase of Western Grocers marks the first foray into food distribution. Garfield Weston dies and is succeeded as chairman by Galen Weston; Loblaws launches the No Name private label. National Tea is divested, completing the company's exit from U.S. food retailing. E.B. Eddy is sold to Domtar Inc.; Loblaws acquires Provigo, thereby gaining a Canada-wide food retail network. Under Garfield's leadership, the firm built its bread and biscuit businesses in Canada and the United States. Weathering the Great Depression without major problems, the company was able to take advantage of its position as a low-cost producer to overtake other competitors in the baking industry. Its 1937 acquisition of McCormick's Limited and its 1938 purchase of Inter-City Western Bakeries, Ltd., for example, provided Weston with the facilities and resources to produce 370 varieties of candy and 100 types of biscuits, in addition to its breads and cakes. Also during the 1930s, the company established operations in the United Kingdom, where it made available the first low-cost, high-quality biscuits. These British bakeries were amalgamated in 1935 into a separate company, Allied Bakeries, which eventually became Associated British Foods PLC. Meanwhile, George Weston Limited also expanded into the United States through the 1939 purchase of the Associated Biscuit Company. Despite World War II, expansion continued smoothly throughout the 1940s. The company diversified into the paper industry through the 1943 acquisition of E.B. Eddy, a firm dating back to the 1851 opening in Hull, Quebec, of a mill to make matches. In 1944 the company bought the Southern Biscuit Company, and the acquisition of Western Grocers marked the firm's initial entry into food distribution. This growth was strengthened by purchases of the Edmonton City Bakery in 1945 and Dietrich's Bakeries in 1946. In 1947 the company acquired William Neilson, a major Canadian producer of chocolate, cocoa, milk, and dairy specialty products. During the 1940s and early 1950s, Weston began buying shares of Loblaw Groceterias, a food distributor, as part of a strategy designed to reach consumers directly with its products. By 1953, the firm had acquired a majority interest in Loblaw, a position that made possible Loblaw's subsequent acquisitions of other food distributors across Canada and the Midwestern United States, including National Grocers of Ontario in 1955; National Tea, a U.S.-based retailer, in 1956; Kelly, Douglas and Company, a British Columbia wholesaler, in 1958; the Maritime-based Atlantic Wholesalers in 1960; and the Zehrmart supermarket chain in 1963. During the 1960s the company pursued further diversification in an attempt to improve its value to shareholders by expanding into fish processing. Weston bought B.C. Packers, a salmon processor, in 1962, and five years later, Connors Bros., the largest herring and sardine processor in Canada. Growth was temporarily curtailed in the 1970s as management focused on reorganizing the company's activities and operations to achieve greater control and efficiency. W. Galen Weston, one of Garfield's sons, had become president in 1970, and the firm began to refocus on food as its primary area of emphasis. The various grocery operations were consolidated under Loblaw Companies Limited and new management was installed. Underperforming stores were closed and many others were remodeled. Meantime, Galen Weston took over as chairman in 1974, four year