Sweetmore Bakeries, a Chicago-based family of specialty bakeries serving retail in-store bakery and foodservice channels nationwide, has completed an acquisition of Fantasy Baking Co., a leading manufacturer of private label and branded sweet baked products, including cookies, fruit filled bars, and dessert bars. The acquisition marks Sweetmore’s sixth facility and its first on the West Coast, extending its manufacturing footprint across the Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, Southwest, and West. Following Shore Capital’s 2025 recapitalization of Sweetmore, the addition of Fantasy Baking further expands the company’s scale, strengthens its position in the key cookie and baked bar categories, and advances its long-term strategy of building a coast-to-coast network for premium sweet baked goods.

Founded in 1979 and headquartered in Sylmar, California, Fantasy Baking brings more than four decades of formulation expertise, supported by its own in-house R&D lab. Its range extends into protein and breakfast bars, dry blends, and ice cream ingredients and inclusions, as well as organic, high-protein, non-GMO, gluten-free, and Kosher recipes and solutions – attributes well aligned with the better-for-you and functional snacking trends reshaping the industry, and a source of flexibility for customers across a broad set of product needs. Fantasy joins Main Street Gourmet, Biscotti Brothers, Azteca Bakeries, Meurer Brothers, and Sweet Eddie’s in the Sweetmore family.

Sweetmore Bakeries’ Chief Executive Officer, David Veenstra, commented, “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. Between their R&D bench strength and their reach into better-for-you trends, this addition makes Sweetmore an even stronger strategic national partner.”

Russ Case, CEO of Fantasy Baking, added, “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. 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.”

Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP served as legal advisor and Alantra, LLC served as financial advisor to Fantasy Baking. DLA Piper LLP served as legal advisor to Sweetmore Bakeries.

About Sweetmore Bakeries

Sweetmore Bakeries is a Chicago-based family of specialty SQF-certified bakeries with nearly 500 employees and six facilities across the United States. Sweetmore started in 2019 with Shore Capital Partners’ acquisition of Main Street Gourmet (Akron, OH), followed by the acquisition of Biscotti Brothers (Greensburg, PA), Meurer Brothers Bakery (Fond du Lac, WI), Sweet Eddie’s (Smyrna, GA), Azteca Bakeries (Phoenix, AZ), and now Fantasy Baking Co. (Sylmar, CA). Together, Sweetmore’s bakery divisions produce high-quality baked goods – including biscotti, brownies, cinnamon rolls, cookies, danish, dessert bars, Mexican pan dulce, muffins, granola, baked bars, icings, and fillings – that help differentiate its customers’ assortments and solve operational challenges across the retail in-store bakery and foodservice channels nationwide. For more information, please visit www.sweetmorebakeries.com.

About Fantasy Baking Co.

Fantasy Baking is an SQF-certified bakery manufacturer specializing in private label and branded cookies, fruit filled bars, dessert bars, and other baked goods, supported by an in-house R&D lab and based in Sylmar, CA.

About Shore Capital Partners

Shore Capital Partners is a Chicago-based private equity firm with an office in Nashville and is an investor in lower-middle market companies across healthcare, food and beverage, business services, industrial and real estate industries. Shore’s strategy is to support management partners in growing faster with less risk through access to capital, experienced board and operating resources, and a collaborative network across its portfolio companies. From 2020 through 2025, Shore was recognized by Inc. Magazine as a six-time Top Founder Friendly Investor and by PitchBook Research for leading U.S. private equity deal volume from 2015 through 2024. Shore has approximately $17 billion in assets under management and additional investment platforms to which it provides business and operational consulting services. For more information, visit www.shorecp.com.

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