Bimbo in China Essay

Bimbo has always been a leading company in its industry. Its distribution and logistics operations have been the keys to the company’s success. Its products are always fresh and it is always in contact with its consumers in order to keep up with needs and tendencias. The company is based in Mexico, though it began expanding into other markets such as U.S., Central America, Brazil and China. Bimbo entered the U.S. market in 1984 through a joint venture and then bought Sara Lee and Wonder later on. In the year 2000, it entered the Brazilian market. Another important market for this company is China because it represented a great challenge. Bimbo had to modify its flavors and its strategies, since its logistics operations could not be the same as in its previous markets.In this market, it was called Bao How, which means tasty bread. It currently has 72 factories and 900 distribution centers in 17 countries. It entered China in 2006 as Beijing Bao How and its name was changed to Bim Bao, which means guest, alluding to the fact that it was now in the Chinese Forbidden City. It has to factories in China, 11 distribution centers and over 100 products in over 11 cities. China represents 5% of its worldwide sales. In order to successfully enter this market it had to tropicalize its products, making them less sweet and more appealing to Chinese taste preferences. Some examples of these are the Meat Loaf, the Green Corn Bread with Pickles, and the Sweat Bean Feal Pun. Its Distribution and logistics strategies changed and its delivery system is executed with turquoise bicycles. Today it has 1876 trucks and 38 bicycles for convenient store distributions as well as to the most marginalized places.