Sweetmore Bakeries buys Fantasy Baking

CHICAGO — Specialty baker Sweetmore Bakeries has acquired Fantasy Baking Co., a Sylmar, Calif.-based manufacturer of private label and branded sweet baked foods.

Financial terms of the transaction, announced Aug. 25, weren’t disclosed. Sweetmore said Fantasy Baking’s product roster includes cookies, fruit-filled bars and dessert bars and extends into protein and breakfast bars, dry blends, and ice cream ingredients and inclusions, along with organic, high-protein, non-GMO, gluten-free, and kosher recipes and solutions.

Chicago-based Sweetmore said the acquisition marks its sixth production facility and first on the West Coast, expanding its manufacturing footprint to cover the Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, Southwest and West and bolstering its position in the cookie and baked bar categories.

“Fantasy Baking gives us a true West Coast manufacturing footprint and deeper category capabilities that strengthen our ability to serve customers’ various product needs nationwide,” said David Veenstra, chief executive officer of Sweetmore Bakeries. “Between their R&D bench strength and their reach into better-for-you trends, this addition makes Sweetmore an even stronger strategic national partner.”

Launched in 1979, Fantasy Baking brings more than four decades of formulation expertise, supported by its own in-house R&D lab, Sweetmore said, adding Fantasy’s products and capabilities are well-aligned with better-for-you and functional snacking trends.

“For over 45 years, the Fantasy Baking team has built our business on doing right by our customers — innovation, quality and service our partners can rely on,” said Russ Case, CEO of Fantasy Baking. “Joining a like-minded partner like Sweetmore allows us to continue this tradition while providing access to scale and resources that will enable Fantasy to serve a broader audience and expand its capabilities.”

Now through six bakery divisions, and with about 500 employees, Sweetmore produces baked foods — ranging from biscotti, brownies, cinnamon rolls, cookies and danishes to dessert bars, Mexican pan dulce, muffins, granola, baked bars, icings and fillings — for the retail in-store bakery and foodservice channels nationwide.

The company started in 2019 when private equity firm Shore Capital Partners recapitalized and boosted investment in Main Street Gourmet, an Akron, Ohio-based wholesale baker supplying in-store bakeries, restaurants, warehouse clubs and convenience stores. Shore Capital then began a series of acquisitions that included Greensburg, Pa.-based specialty wholesale bakery Biscotti Brothers (serving in-store bakeries) in November 2020 and Fond du Lac, Wis.-based premium pastry maker Meurer Brothers Bakery (serving in-store bakeries) in November 2021, with the three bakeries uniting under the Sweetmore Bakeries banner in mid-2022.

That was followed by the purchases of Smyrna, Ga.-based wholesale cinnamon roll manufacturer Sweet Eddie’s (serving retail and foodservice channels) in May 2024 and Phoenix-based Azteca Bakeries, a wholesale manufacturer of Mexican pastries and baked foods, in January 2025. Then in May 2025, Chicago-based Shore Capital recapitalized Sweetmore through a special purpose vehicle to support further growth.