Minneapolis-based Rise Baking Company has completed its acquisition of Jimmy's Gourmet Bakery, picking up three Northeast manufacturing facilities totaling more than 350,000 square feet and a thaw-and-sell portfolio that spans branded cookies, private label solutions, and artisan breads. The deal reinforces Rise's standing as one of North America's largest dedicated bakery suppliers to grocery in-store bakeries, convenience chains, QSRs, and mass merchandisers.
What Rise Gets
Founded in 1985, Jimmy's built its retail and foodservice business around premium thaw-and-sell baked goods — a format that remains a high-velocity, low-labor solution for in-store bakery operators managing shrink and staffing constraints. The acquired portfolio includes the Jimmy's Cookies brand, the King Krumb Cookie line, and Ecce Panis artisan breads, along with established private label manufacturing capabilities that slot directly into Rise's existing own-brand services for grocery customers. For retailers evaluating planogram resets and in-store bakery vendor consolidation, the combined supplier now presents a broader assortment under a single manufacturer relationship.
Rise CEO Mark McNeil pointed to the talent and culture at Jimmy's as a core rationale for the deal. "Jimmy's has built an outstanding team, a strong culture and a reputation for delivering innovative products and service," McNeil said. "Together, we'll build on that foundation as we continue investing in our customers, our people, and the future of our business." Howard Hirsch, CEO of Jimmy's, framed the transaction as a platform for growth rather than an exit, noting it creates new opportunities for employees, partners, and customers. Jimmy's President Michael Pisani added that access to Rise's broader resources will enable accelerated innovation and service delivery.
Manufacturing Footprint
The Northeast manufacturing expansion is strategically significant for a supplier whose grocery and foodservice customers require reliable, regionalized supply chains. Adding 350,000-plus square feet of production capacity in the Northeast complements Rise's existing Midwest and broader North American network, improving transit times and freshness windows for thaw-and-sell SKUs — a category where cold-chain logistics directly affect turn rate and on-shelf quality. The three Jimmy's facilities also provide headroom for volume growth as Rise pursues additional distribution points across its grocery and club-channel customer base.
Rise, formed in 2013, has scaled through a series of complementary acquisitions, assembling a house of brands that includes Brill, South Coast Baking, Table Talk, Best Maid, Henry & Henry, and Bakestone Brothers, among others. The company serves leading national grocery chains, convenience stores, QSRs, and mass merchandisers — a channel mix that gives its branded and private label offerings broad ACV exposure across retail formats. Jimmy's will operate independently during an integration period, with both sides emphasizing continuity for existing customer programs and supply agreements.
For grocery operators managing in-store bakery category performance under ongoing cost pressures, a manufacturer with expanded cookie, artisan bread, and private label depth under one roof offers consolidation upside — fewer vendor negotiations, streamlined DSD or warehouse delivery arrangements, and a single point of contact for seasonal and promotional programming. The cookie segment in particular remains a high-impulse, high-margin in-store bakery driver, and Jimmy's branded equity in that category adds TDP opportunity for Rise across accounts where it may not yet hold cookie placement. Retailers and foodservice operators tracking bakery supply chain developments will want to monitor how Rise integrates Jimmy's innovation pipeline into its broader R&D function in the months ahead.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
