Baking & Snack - February 2022 - 22

BAKING HALL OF FAME
THE
Croissant
Yianny
Connoisseurs
Y
Yianny and George Caparos began their baking careers
more than 30 years ago, working for their father's bakery
in Chicago. It was this lifelong commitment to baking that
helped the brothers go on to reinvent the breakfast category
and become the gold standard for croissants.
After the family bakery was sold in 1994, Yianny
Caparos made his own way in the business, becoming
vice president of sales for the East Balt Commissary, a
South Side Chicago bakery and a McDonald's bun supplier.
In 2002, he got a bakery of his own, purchasing
the laminated dough division of the commissary and rebranding
it as Gold Standard Baking. He brought in his
father as general manager and his brother as director of
sales, and the family bakery turned its focus to the highquality
frozen croissants they're known for today.
The Caparos' bakery saw immediate success, and within
18 months, Gold Standard was producing more than 1 million
croissants per week. While the croissants were high
quality, the brothers credited much of the bakery's accomplishments
to its customer service, which they said was the
beginning, middle and end of Gold Standard's mission.
" Our customers are our friends, " George Caparos
said. " They know us as the specialty croissant guys, and
that's all we want to be. "
Recognizing croissants as an emerging category, the
brothers in 2008 brought in Arbor Investments, an equity
firm specializing in the food industry. Gold Standard's
business skyrocketed soon after. With Arbor's support,
including a $40 million investment into equipment and
facilities to increase capacity fivefold, the bakery quadrupled
its sales and quickly became the nation's largest
manufacturer of specialty croissants. The brothers sold
Gold Standard in 2015, and the transformation and suc22
Baking & Snack February 2022 / www.bakingbusiness.com
George
The Caparos brothers became a force in the industry with a passion for croissants.
by Lucas Cuni-Mertz
cessful sale of the bakery earned Arbor and them the
" Deal of the Year Award " from Buyout Magazine.
But the Caparos were far from done with baking.
Arbor continued its relationship with the brothers, placing
them as directors on the board of Rise Baking. The
bakery saw exceptional growth under the Caparos, becoming
a leading North American bakery serving both
in-store retailers and foodservice operators.
Most recently, the Caparos brothers partnered with
Arbor in 2019 to form Crown Bakeries, with Yianny
serving as president and George serving as chief development
officer. Based in Nashville, Tenn., Crown
Bakeries has positioned itself as a leader in the breakfast
baked goods category, investing more than $30 million
in single-serve items and sandwich carriers like
buns and English muffins. Of course, a Caparos bakery
wouldn't be complete without croissants, and Crown
Bakeries opened a Nashville bakery in 2021 dedicated
entirely to the category. The bakery features a highspeed
production line and is fully automated.
While Crown Bakeries currently serves the southeast
United States, Yianny Caparos hopes it will soon reach
customers across North America. It's already well on its
way: Crown Bakeries had three manufacturing plants in
2019, and has since grown to eight facilities.
The Caparos brothers are respected within the baking industry
and known by many as simply " the croissant guys. "
" They are true innovators in the frozen bakery products
market, " said Robb MacKie, American Bakers Association
president and CEO. " Croissants are an extremely tricky
bakery product to produce, and the Caparos modernized
and perfected the operation. They are the classic case of
'Once a baker, always a baker.' "
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Baking & Snack - February 2022

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