Starbucks gobbles up La Boulange café-bakeries

Starbucks is buying La Boulange Café & Bakery, the San Francisco-based chain of 19 casual eateries, and will use its recipes to improve its food offerings. The acquisition of La Boulange’s parent company, Bay Bread, is for $100 million cash. La Boulange was sold to a global investment group in 2006. Besides bolstering its coffee shop food menu, Starbucks intends to roll out La Boulange as a national chain in the coming years, today’s news release says. NYT; Bloomberg