Mexican baked goods giant Grupo Bimbo has made its largest investment in Argentina since entering the country almost three decades ago.
The company has inaugurated a new $100m production line for bread at its facility in Pilar in Buenos Aires Province.
Bimbo, which set up in Argentina in 1995, said the line has the capacity to manufacture 15,000 units of household bread an hour. When bringing the line into Argentina, Bimbo benefited from a tax exemption for machinery imports from the Department of Industry and Production Development.
José Zavalía Lagos, the general manager of Bimbo’s business in Argentina, said the new line will make distribution more effective and allow the company to cover new areas throughout the country.
He also stressed that “due to innovation in recipes and an improvement in the nutritional profile of its products”, none of Bimbo’s products in Argentina have to carry the octagonal labels that highlight to the consumer products contain “excess” sugar, sodium and saturated fats. The labels were introduced in February under new labelling laws.
Bimbo has four facilities in Argentina, three in Buenos Aires and one in Cordoba province. Company executives said the investment at the Pilar site comes amid rising demand for bread in Argentina.
On Wednesday, Argentina’s National Institute for Statistics and Census (INDEC) revealed the country’s monthly inflation reached 12.4% in August after a currency devaluation. Year on year, prices rose 124.4%
In the food and non-alcoholic beverages category, prices rose 15.6% in August versus July, contributing to a 90.2% hike since January 2023, ten points above general inflation.
To ease the pressure on consumers and try to boost demand, yesterday Economy Minister and presidential candidate for the October elections, Sergio Massa, announced the government will return to consumers the VAT on purchases of basic goods, including baked goods.
