Thursday June 21, 2012

Brokers Optimistic About
Farley’s, Ferrara Merger

Forest Park, IL — While cautioning it is too early to tell the overall impact of the Farley’s/Ferrara Pan merger (CST online, June 19), industry sources say they are optimistic.

One broker, for example, tells Candy & Snack TODAY: “It’s one of the most exciting things to happen in the candy industry in a number of years. It obviously brings a lot of chaos, but once that’s waded through, it’s going to be great for the industry, for the broker community and great for customers.”

The broker continues: “Combining all these brands will offer some great synergy. The critical mass that this company brings will be very attractive to customers in negotiations with their major suppliers. Consolidation is never good for the brokerage community, but given that consolidation is a way of life, the good brokers will continue to be successful.”

Additional sources peg the new company, Ferrara Candy Co., Inc., as an important new leader in the industry.

“It will be a whole new force to reckon with and it’ll definitely be the non-chocolate leader in the country, so it will be interesting to see how this turns out,” one source says.

Ferrara has not revealed its strategy for combining all the candy lines, but a meeting reportedly has been scheduled for later this month to discuss the sales team integration.

The companies announced the merger on June 18 but did not release any financial details of the transaction.