The founder of ACE Bakery couldn’t be happier, even though the company she sold two years ago was bought this week for a whopping $110 million.
"I think it’s wonderful that an iconic Canadian company has bought ACE," Linda Haynes told PostCity.com. "I’m sure they’ll do a fabulous job with it."
Haynes, along with her husband, Martin Connell, founded the company back in 1993 following a quest to create the perfect baguette.
The couple ran the bakery until 2008, when they sold it for an undisclosed amount.
"The people who bought it didn’t want it to be divulged," said Haynes, regarding the price.
Earlier this week, the bakery changed hands again after George Weston Ltd., the company behind Canada’s iconic grocer Loblaws, doled out $110 million for iconic bread brand.
A Quick Rise
After opening back in 1993, ACE Bakery quickly turned from a local experiment in West Toronto to a large bakery in North Toronto and finally to a national success story that saw loaves stocked on shelves across the country.
"We were very lucky in that we were able to make something that the food journalists and the public were really looking for," Haynes said. "We were the first people that were really doing that kind of bread in Toronto."
When they started ACE Bakery, the couple had three goals for the company.
"We wanted to be able to give a substantial amount of the profits away to our foundation, we wanted to have fun, and we wanted to turn out some good bread," Haynes said.
At the time, the couple had already formed Calmeadow, a microcredit company that included initiatives such as a First Nations lending program, and they used profits from the bakery to support their foundation.
Eventually, they managed to make Calmeadow a self-sustaining charity and were diverting their money to other causes.
"We specialized in food and nutrition programs for low income families and we also put some donations into organic farming and culinary scholarships."
Now, Haynes has been keeping busy writing cookbooks, the latest being Two Dishes — a double take on recipes, one by Haynes and one by her daughter.
"Basically she has a different lifestyle and a different budget," says Haynes, on why they developed two versions of each recipe — one for the financially-secure gourmand and the other catering to the time-and-budget-pressed eater.
Haynes also finds herself, from time to time, purchasing a fresh loaf of ACE bread and says she plans to continue the tradition.
