Gerard Vanherpe founded the company as a flourmill in 1939.

Trough successful entrepreneurship, a focused investment and acquisition strategy as well as determination to get to grips with all the quality variables of flour, the milling group grown into one of the leading companies in its field.

To consolidate its operations in what is a highly competitive market, in 1999, the milling division merged all its production units into one, totally renovated mill. This is now looked as one of the most efficient and modern flour mills in Europe.

With its milling capacity of 1050 tons of wheat per day, this mill serves major local and multinational clients in Belgium, Holland, France and the UK.

Vertical integration began in 1974, with the take-over of a fresh bakery company, La Lorraine NV. This company specialized in the production of a wide range of traditional bread and pastry products and their daily distribution to the individual outlets of major supermarkets accounts.

In the 80s La Lorraine was a pioneer in the new trend towards frozen bakery products for "bake-off" purposes. The company's expertise in flour fitted well with the rich diversity of recipes from its fresh bakery unit to generate substantial growth in frozen bake-off products.

Through strong internal growth and a number of acquisitions, the La Lorraine Bakery Group now operates 6 highly automated factories in Belgium, 1 plant in the Czech Republic (Prague) and one in Poland (Warshau).

The very high standard of hygiene and productivity in these factories have allowed the La Lorraine Bakery Group to consolidate its leading position in the Belgian and Polish bakery Market and to develop into one of Europe's major producers of frozen bakery products.