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West Michigan truckers and contractors offer this tip if you're paying a call on the Roskam Baking Co. in metro Grand Rapids:
Take a map.
Not only does the area's largest commercial baker keep its name off its buildings, it also won't bother for years to take down the signs of the former owners.
Case in point is Roskam's hulking plant on Broadmoor Avenue in Kentwood that doesn't give a clue to motorists driving along the thoroughfare that it operates there. A sign at the main offices at the west side of the plant prominently states "Steelcase - Computer Furniture Division."
Roskam Baking and an affiliate bought the plant more than four years ago, county property records indicate. Last month, its parking lot was crammed with new Rademaker baking equipment and scissor lifts that construction crews are using to improve the plant as part of a $60.5 million upgrade.
Roskam Baking's factory on 29th Street still has the name "Great Lakes Mazda Parts Distribution Center" on the building and front sign even though that business closed 13 years ago. The baker also kept the logo of Cutler Sports Apparel on a plant on Oak Industrial Drive after Cutler closed its operations here in 1995.
The name game highlights two facts about Roskam Baking: its penchant for obscurity and its knack for breathing new life into vacant buildings in metro Grand Rapids by entering new business sectors, then selling portions of the company to fund new endeavors.
Probably no other corporation has done more to put metro Grand Rapids on the map as Snack City U.S.A. than Roskam Baking, founded by Marinus and Clara Roskam as a commercial bakery of pies, doughnuts and specialty breads. (See story, Page 14.)
Not only do Roskam and its affiliates have an estimated 1.2 million square feet of manufacturing space and offices at more than nine locations throughout metro Grand Rapids, but Roskam also acted as a magnet to draw the nation's largest contract baker and a worldwide leader in food ingredients and flavors to the region by selling plants it had grown organically.
Roskam's close relationship with Columbian Logistics Network in Grand Rapids has helped forge a sophisticated supply chain for the precise movement and storage of foodstuffs...