Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee, except for the company itself, as it will no longer be doing business under that name. Sara Lee Corp. announced a change in monikers to Hillshire Brands Co. today at an investors meeting in New York.
Baked goods to packaged lunch meat might seem like a big shift, but Sara Lee has already been moving away from the frozen cakes and desserts that made it a household name.
It’s spinning off a division of European beverages later this month, and has been focusing on trying to save its Hillshire Farm line of packaged meat products, reports NASDAQ.com.
During the announcement, Sara Lee also said it’ll be rolling out new products and marketing campaigns for its other meaty household brands like Ball Park hot dogs, Jimmy Dean sausage and State Fair corn dogs. You can look forward to Ball Park Sliders coming your way eventually.
The Sara Lee name won’t be on the company’s letterhead, but aficionados will still be able to find it in restaurants it sells to, as well as the grocery aisle. However, those retail dessert products are now made by other companies.
So really, somebody really doesn’t like Sara Lee and it happens to be Sara Lee.
Sara Lee Renames Itself Hillshire Brands [NASDAQ.com]
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This is a terrible idea. When I think Hillshire, I think of meat products, not tasty baked goods.
Decided not to read the article, eh?
Basically.
The Sara Lee brand is not going anywhere. This article is referring to a name change for the corporate parent company, which includes Sara Lee and Hillshire Farms. These brands will continue to exist. This is strictly a name change on the corporate level.
Better than “Mondelez.”
20 years ago, they made good desserts but that changed. They might as well make the change, since the name really doesn’t mean anything more (nor does the Hillshire brand). The whole thing looks suspiciously like a TV show desperately trying to save itself by introducing new characters to see if any of them will become popular.
The problem with creating a iconic food is that you feel unable to change that food, even when doing so is necessary to keep up with the changing consumer sentiment. You get locked into this idea that you need to keep it the same, even while other, newer, options come out that might appeal to the larger consumer base.
So while you stick to what made you the success you are, that aspect is exactly what’s killing you instead.
Sara needed to read http://www.amazon.com/Change-Die-Three-Keys-Work/dp/0060886897
Does this make ANY sense? The Sara Lee name has a virtual monopoly in the frozen baked treat department. Is it just me? I think of their stuff by default. Is that a bad thing somehow? Why would they want to squander that kind of association?
I think we’re moving toward’s a healthier way of eating – or at least away from the extremely artificial. Some companies are going to go down with a sword in their hand. Sara Lee it seems has decided to cut it’s losses and stay ahead of the curve.
Who knows, this may play to their favor.
By selling over-processed fatty meats instead of over-processed sugary baked goods?
Sara Lee sold their baked products to Bimbo and other companies years ago. The processed meats are really all they produce themselves anymore.
When I was a kid, Sara Lee was a real treat. But so was McDonalds, Scwinn bikes were top of the line, and Timex was the watch on most peoples wrists. Today McDonalds is the food you grab when you don’t have time for anything else (if you it fast food at all), bikes are ruled by niche shops for high end, or low end junk for a big box store, and hardly anyone wears a watch. I haven’t bought a Sara Lee dessert product in many, many years. I think this is a good move for a company that really isn’t in the pre-packaged baked goods business anymore, and the name change reflects it. I think Hillshire Brands has a beeter reputation than Sara Lee. With one you think processed meat products, but at least tasty meat products, the other you think, “oh, I remember them from my childhood. Are they still araound?”
When I think of Sara Lee baked goods, I think not of my childhood but about what I want on the table at my birthday every year, even now.
Love that frozen pound cake. I don’t care how processed it is. It’s nummy.
Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee “Sausages?”
Meat Cake.
I used to think the slogan was “Nobody Does It Like Sara Lee,” which I thought made baked goods intriguingly sexy. Or creepy, depending on how she actually did it. Sara Lee is into some jacked up shit.
I hear nobody does it like Stan Lee either.
I still thought it said that until this article. Seriously.
As did I. I think “Nobody doesn’t like…” is an awkward phrasing.
So, to clarify:
1) The Sara Lee product that is on store shelves is not produced by the Sara Lee company, but rather by a third party that licenses the SL name;
2) The Sara Lee company makes no baked goods, but rather meat products and byproducts;
3) The Sara Lee company is changing its name to Hillshire Brands (which falls in line with the name of its Hillshire Farms brand.
So, Sara Lee as a brand is worth more for its name and theoretical goodwill than as a label, at least as far as the Sara Lee company is concerned. In order to accomplish something (I’m not sure what), the Sara Lee company is changing its name but still retaining the profits from the licensing of the Sara Lee brand, which is now used by third parties.
Corporate structuring is fascinating. Abusrd, but fascinating.
Sara Lee also made socks and underwear for a while too…(they owned Hanes, but it was spun off a few years ago) Seemed odd that they used the name then for their corporation for so long since it is so associated with desserts.
I don’t like Sara Lee. No really, I don’t like their breads at all. Give me Nature’s Own bread and various bakery items.
Same here.
When I think of American executives I think of an office full of overweight, almost naked blubber-bouncing drunks running through the halls and cubicles bellowing incoherently with a half-empty square bottle in one hand and a clump of hair in the other; stock price painted on their stomach and their bankruptcy attorney’s e-mail address painted on their ass.
It’s an image that makes far more sense than what passes as leadership in 2012. This nation is lost.
And let’s not forget: Bimbo bought Sara Lee’s baked goods division a few years ago.
Bimbo.
The business ignorance of this move boggles the mind.
If this means that the Sara Lee trademark and logo will disappear
from products and store shelves, they have committed business
suicide. Hillshire Farms, long known for its own products must be the
bigger elephant in the corporate room and wants to rule the roost.
Sara Lee is a MUCH more recognized brand across virtually all
types of demographics. Lets conjecture that this announcement only
means that “internally” Sara Lee Corp will cease to exist as a distinct
(but held) entity of Hillshire and will simply be folded more completely
into the parent company. If they drop the “Sara Lee” brand, I can only
wish them failure due to their stupidity. If I worked for Sara Lee, I would
get my resume in order, because the assh*** suits upstairs may have just stepped
in their own excrement.
RTFA. That is not what it says. I always love how people who have NEVER run a bake sale should tell a company what they should do with their name or what they do.
How did is work out for Kodak sticking to the past? Polaroid? Timex? Schwinn?
Change is good and it is a smart business decision ESPECIALLY since the only thing they had was the corporate name Sara Lee and NOTHING else to do with baked goods. Imagine going to a company named Victoria Secrets and all they sold were men’s suits. They are changing teir name to what they actually are
Well RTFA to you too you little sweetie!
And I am famous for my bake sales I’ll have you know.
You obviously have no knowledge about the power of a name in retail business.
Quick get an MBA from phoenix.edu (2 weeks max) and even that worthless
degree will give you the low down on name recognition.
For your information, the “old” “outdated” products from Polaroid, Schwinn and
Kodak and now considered collectable BECAUSE THEY STILL WORK JUST FINE
because they were quality items destroyed by bad management such as what Hillshire
is doing to the Sara Lee brand. Even check what’s in a Hillshire Farms sausage, the poop
of the executives that’s what.
The “new” technologies don’t produce products of quality and longevity anymore because
everything is based on software and bit and bytes and those change by the minute.
None of those products starting with the advent of the PC in 1980 can be used now.
Things become unusable every couple of years. The days of quality American manufacturing
are over because people no longer care about quality and longevity, they only care about
how cool the toy is THIS SECOND.
Sarah Lee has gone downhill and I don’t equate their name with quality, Their bread products are bland and turn to mush when you eat them.
So, Bimbo, huh? Well, they make a few other brands too, like Thomas English Muffins, Entenmann’s Cloyingly Sweet Desserts, Arnold and a bunch of others.
http://www.bimbobakeriesusa.com/our_brands/
Maybe Hillshire does know what they are doing. They rent their lesser names to a Bimbo.
Perhaps an attempt to hide their identity? Not fooling those of us who know the jubilee awarded company by the Zionists for their support of illegal settlements and funding to all Zionist groups. BDS!!
This article is about a corporate name change. Big deal. Consumers do not care what the name of the corporate parent company is. The existing brands produced by this company will still exist on store shelves.
I’m glad to know about the name change because ever since they killed 15 people back in 1998, I’ve refused to buy their products. Knowing their new name will allow me to continue to avoid buying their products. I’ll know that instead of looking for “Sara Lee Corporation” on them, I should look for “Hillshire Brands”.
I don’t like Sara Lee because they killed 15 people in 1998. Call me crazy, but murder isn’t something I tend to forget about.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/toxic/saralee090401.cfm