Sara Lee, the household brand related to in house meat products and baked goods and synonymous with toiletries in other countries dates back to 1939. Nathan Cummins acquired a small wholesale sugar, tea and coffee distribution business and then in 1942 Sprague, Warner and Company prompted a change in name and shifting of headquarters from Baltimore to Chicago. In 1954 the company was rechristened as Consolidated Foods which then acquired Kitchens of Sara Lee and entered the retail foods business. John H Bryan of Consolidated Foods acquired company Bryan Meats became president and CEO in 1975 and retired as a chairman in 2001, and then the company changed its name to Sara Lee Corporation in 1985. The first major change in marketing tactics of…show more content… This initiative was taken into mind because of the diversified and scattered business operations that the company had, though these ventures brought in a lot of capital but they seemed to be spiraling out of the company’s good hold over their operations. Then CEO Brenda Barnes centered her attention on divestiture of weak performing businesses that brought in total revenue of about $7.2billion. Barnes envisioned that the Sara Lee would be much better off focusing on financial and managerial assets on smaller number of business segments in which Sara Lee had a good competitive…show more content… Project Accelerate was launched by the top management in the year 2008 with an aim to achieve the above stated profit margin of 12% by 2010 and benefits of $350million to $400 million were expected by end of 2012 but total cumulative benefits at the end of 2012 amounted to only $180 million. The result of retrenchment was that in 2010 Sara Lee North American Retail business held market shares of 30% in smoked sausages 23% in hotdogs, 14% in lunch meat, 55% in breakfast sausage, 22% in frozen desserts and 55% in single serving coffee. Sara Lee’s North American Foodservice division achieved good profits but was hit due to recession in 2007 but even then the downfall was only a small amount from $2.2 billion in 2008 to $1.9 billion in 2010, Foodservice division achieved these numbers as a result of strategies applied by the retail division of Sara Lee. In 2010 Sara Lee’s Senseo single serving coffeemakers had a market share of 40% in